


So much harder to love when alive

by Aegir



Series: Heroes aren't meant to survive [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ant-Man Post-Credits Scene, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War AU, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, PTSD, References to Art, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 55,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegir/pseuds/Aegir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The horrors in the Winter Soldier file destroyed Steve's belief that anything of his best friend could have survived.  Devastated, he turned his back on the search for the Soldier.  Two years later, with new controls on superheroes about to be brought in, he's face to face with the man in Bucky's body again.  </p><p>The Winter Soldier knew he wasn't Bucky Barnes.  He also knew his taste of freedom couldn't last.   He hadn't expected to find himself on the run again with a group of former Avengers who have refused to accept the new laws, but with a HYDRA trail to follow they have a common cause.</p><p>*Now complete*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In exchange for a hero’s farewell

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came from the Ant-Man post-credits scene, where I was shocked by how *cold* Steve seemed. I mean Bucky was right there, and Steve seemed to be just ignoring him and talking to Sam like he was dealing with a malfunctioning machine and not a trapped human being? That would be harsh if it were a total stranger who needed his help. The idea bit me: What if Steve really was being cold? Why? And where would they go from there? 
> 
> I've used some of the speculation and supposed 'leaked' plot points that have been going round about Civil War, but I don't expect very much of this to match up with the real version. There will be Steve/Bucky eventually, but not explicit (because I'm no good at explicit).
> 
> The title and quotes at the start are from ‘Heroes’ by Mika, a stunningly perfect song for Steve and Bucky.

_Heroes aren’t meant to survive_  
_So much harder to love when alive_  
_Walk with the devil in your head_  
_You would think you were better off dead_

_~~~~~_

 

 _“You might not want to pull on that thread,”_ Natasha said, but Steve Rogers is stubborn and reckless and never backs down from a fight, so of course he pulls the thread.  And it’s Steve that unravels.

 _“Steve, don’t bite off more than you can chew.”_ That’s Bucky in the long past, half-joking half-resigned.  Nothing like the man who snarled _“You’re my mission,”_ as he pounded Steve’s face to pulp.

Sam comes round two days later, and kicks in the door, which already took a whack when SHIELD was stretchering the bleeding Fury outside.  Steve is no longer huddled in the corner of the bathroom, but he hasn’t been able to keep anything except water down, and with his advanced metabolism the weight has been falling off him fast.  Later he’ll think that Sam probably saved his life.

It’s nearly a month before Steve is able to think about anything much beyond getting through another day.  Everything marches through his mind.  His mother coughing her life-blood out in Brooklyn.  Dr Erskine dying under his hands.  Bucky falling, mouth open in a scream.  Black headlines shouting Howard’s death.  Peggy weeping with white hair.  The Triskelion crumbling, taking people Steve called friends with it.  The file.  The file.  The file.  He hates himself for being so broken by just reading it, feels like he’s somehow making Bucky’s agony, Bucky’s destruction, about himself.

“It was never him,” he says dully to Sam, one day.  “It was never Bucky.  Just his body.” 

“Well,” Sam says.  “You would know.”

But Steve hadn’t.  Stupid, optimistic Steve, still thinking he could put things right.  He hadn’t known until he read the file.  Nobody could have survived that. 

They go looking for the Winter Soldier anyway.  Steve already knows the Soldier survived, Natasha  had shown him security camera footage of the Soldier using his metal arm to punch open a cash machine the evening after the helicarriers went down.  He’s potentially a dangerous loose end, and looking gives Steve an occupation, but when Tony Stark calls a couple of months later he heads for New York, relieved to abandon the search.  He doesn’t know what it would do to him, to have to face the killer in Bucky’s body again, the walking proof Bucky died in slow agony in HYDRA hands.

Sam keeps looking, though Steve tells him it’s not needed.  “After flying again I don’t think I could just quit,” Sam says. 

“Don’t try and tackle him by yourself,” Steve warns.

“Do I look like I’m stupid?”

So Steve goes back to the Avengers, and he trains and fights and talks and even laughs once in a while.  He doesn’t sleep much, but his body hasn’t needed much sleep since the serum, so that’s OK.

~~~

The Soldier takes his trackers out on the riverbank, after banging his dislocated shoulder back into place against a tree.  He knows where they are, though he can’t remember how he knows; he pries open the plate on his arm with a knife-blade to remove the tracker there, then uses the same knife to slice out the trackers in his flesh bicep and his right thigh, as well as the capsule in his chest that can flood his body with fast acting sedative.  There’s a lot of blood from the last, but he can still walk afterwards.  He throws them all in the river.

The same night he goes to an address that is in his head, though he can’t remember ever going there.  The place is deserted, he punches in the safe combination, without asking how he knows it, and removes three fake sets of ID with his face on, and another wad of cash to add to that taken from the machine earlier.  There are some clothes also, he takes the most nondescript, stuffing spare garments into a duffel bag.  The tactical gear will have to be abandoned along with the heavier grade weaponry, but he keeps the boots.  There is an assortment of mobile phones and laptops, which he leaves, knowing there are ways they can be tracked and those ways have surely been installed.  By the next night he has a room in a run-down motel. 

He’s operating without much conscious thought, only the certainty it’s important not to go back.  He needs direct goals to think a straight line through the fragments in his head, sharp like steel snowflakes.  He sets himself a goal: discover more about Captain Steven Grant Rogers.  A faded advertisement for an exhibition gives an unexpected starting point.

Whatever he’d been expecting it wasn’t his own face plastered all over, nearly as many times as the Captain’s own.  The idealised paintings on the walls don’t mean much to him, but the black and white photograph of a man whose mouth is turned down in a hard line at the corners holds him.  That’s a man he can picture lying for hours to make a sniper shot.  That’s a man that is familiar, but not in the way Steven Grant Rogers was familiar, not in the way the address with the safe was familiar.  This is something else. 

He knows then why he has always been angry, rage grown cold and sullen with age, long kept in check by the certainty of pain if he shows it.  He knows why he has always felt he is bleeding out from the inside.  He knows the body he is in belonged to James Buchanan Barnes, but none of that means he knows who he is. 

His next mission is to find out everything there is to know about James Barnes.  He buys a tablet, second hand, browses the web – it seems he knows how to do this.  He goes to libraries.  There’s a rush of information on Captain America published and reprinted, and although James Barnes is a side issue he does get mentioned.

More fragments fly into his mind like shrapnel.  All the time.  Can he call them memories if they aren’t his? Sometimes they are distant, sometimes they shake him with even the echo of emotion.  Finding a way through them is terrifying and painful.  It’s so hard sometime, to pierce together whether a kill was one of his for HYDRA or was one of Barnes’.

What becomes increasingly certain is that he isn’t Barnes, he just has Barnes’ body.  The man in the stories and the memories, the man who was so at ease round people, who did good turns and showed kindness and acted to protect, that’s not a man he could ever have been.  And the things he has done are things that man would never do.  He has some echoes from Barnes, yes, and that’s the sole reason Steve Rogers is alive today.  That’s all. 

He doesn’t like thinking about Rogers, or how it must have been for him on that helicarrier, beaten nearly to death by the thing in his best friend’s body.  Of course that was just the last in a long line of horrors he’s committed, he doesn’t like thinking of those either, but the shard of remembrance just won’t stop falling.   He doesn’t like thinking of how HYDRA destroyed James Barnes, but the iced over anger remains.

He can’t bring back the dead, but he can do something to avenge them.  He can’t bring back Barnes, but he can use his body in ways that don’t dishonour him.  He needs a mission if he’s not to go insane.  His mission is HYDRA.

The Soldier doesn’t bother with the small fry, he goes after the heads.  HYDRA may believe in growing heads back, but it will take them time.  He’s careful about it, does his research even with the ones he remembers because it’s not like his memory is all that reliable.  He had been a secret even within HYDRA, and that helps now, lets him use HYDRA contacts, give the passcodes (he knows the highest, used easily in front of him by men with too much confidence in their mindwipes), get the intelligence he needs.   He varies the methods, tries to leave no clear pattern, keeps his arm covered with long sleeves and gloves or sometimes in a sling.  The targets fall, one at a time, and it doesn’t make him feel any different but he hadn’t expected a cure.  What’s wrong with him is his existence, and that’s a mistake that will get fixed sooner or later.  He doesn’t expect his freedom to last, the important thing is not to be taken alive again.  He has his plans.

He’s aware for a time of the man with wings following him.  The man isn’t HYDRA, and it’s not too hard to stay ahead of him, so the Soldier does.  He doesn’t risk attempting to find out who the man is working for, after all it hardly matters as long as it’s not HYDRA, but it’s a relief when the man stops.  One less thing to keep track of.

He sees Captain Rogers on television screens sometimes.  In the US he is an idol, even when doubt, distrust and outright dislike are hurled at the other Avengers.  Outside it’s another matter, many see Captain America as the embodiment of imperialism, although Iron Man is disliked even more.  The Soldier has enough of Bucky Barnes’ memories to think that neither of those pictures has much to do with little Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, but the Captain hasn’t been little in a long time.  The Soldier wonders what Rogers thinks of his reputations.  He doesn’t dwell on it though.  Rogers on the screen in the present, Rogers in old black and white newsreels, both are equally far from him and the best possible thing for both would be if they never see each other again.  Seeing Rogers makes him hurt, but so many things do that, so many things rub in what he is and can never be and the only thing to do is focus on the mission.

It’s all going efficiently enough until he gets wind of the vibranium channel.  He could have ignored it, stuck to what he knew, which was killing, but he must have been getting a little too cocky because he got the idea of following the trail, trying to find out where HYDRA were taking the stuff .  He was trying to do something right and it wasn’t what he was made for, so the attempt was doomed from the start.


	2. There's no turning back

Steve finally convinces Sam to join the Avengers after Thor and Tony quit.  He misses Thor, whose straightforward warmth is remarkably comforting, but is not sorry to see Stark take some time off to deal with all the lawsuits that have been flying his way since the Ultron disaster.  Steve finds he doesn’t really have the energy to go on being angry with the man, but he also doesn’t trust Stark not to pull something else just as bad so it’s a relief Stark is likely to have his hands full for the future.  The work with the new team keeps him reassuringly busy, although Colonel Rhodes is probably better at this than Steve is, Natasha needs friendship more than supervision and Steve needs Sam’s friendship more than his wings.  Wanda, though, is in a bad way at first, and trying to help her believe she can still have something to live for helps Steve believe he can be more than just a set of muscles and a symbol.  Vision is strangely simple and complicated at once, and they are probably all a bit out of their depth around him, much of Steve’s time get taken up with fielding people who insist Vision can’t be human and want to apply various forms of ‘observation’, which are just another name for imprisonment.  He’s furious on Vision’s behalf, and that’s good, that’s a real solid feeling.

The Winter Soldier appears to have fallen off the map.  There have been rumours, killings with no killer ever caught, but there’s nothing solid.  Most likely the Soldier went straight back to what was left of HYDRA and is back in cyrofreeze.  Perhaps that was his best option, for Steve being frozen was peaceful.  As long as Steve doesn’t have to see him again.   Steve can go a whole week now without waking up reaching for Bucky’s hand as he falls, without waking with the sound of the Soldier’s snarled “You’re my mission,” and the pain of his cheekbone shattering.  It’s the last thing he remembers before waking up in hospital. 

So things are pretty stable, until they go to hell in London.

The Avengers, minus Vision who had taken a few days out to meditate, were checking out a report of HYDRA activity.  Steve is willing to admit he may not have taken it calmly when he saw Rumlow, or Crossbones as he’s calling himself now, but he didn’t lose his head.  They were suckered, that’s the truth of it, the whole set-up was a trap.  The blast ripped through a busy business area, it took three days to number up the dead.

Steve takes full responsibility.  He offers to resign, but is told it isn’t enough.  After Hulk’s rampage in South Africa, after the damage in Seoul and the wreck of Sokovia, the Avengers are no longer trusted.  General Ross tells Steve they are to stand down.  Steve, with the screams still in his ears, the blood still staining his mind, can’t deny he has a point. 

When Stark shows him the security camera footage of the Winter Soldier leaving the building where the blast had been centred only a few minutes before the explosion tore bodies apart, it falls into place with a kind of bleak inevitability.  The kind you stop.  Sam had been right, and stupid, sentimental Steve hadn’t listened.

“He’s not your old pal,” Stark says.  His hand is resting on two files, one covering the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark, the other six Stark Industries’ employees who died in the London blast.  Who would be alive if Steve had finished the job properly on the helicarrier.

“I know it’s not him,” Steve says, and he does.  “I know we have to take him down.  Just don’t make it a vendetta.”

“He killed my parents, Cap,” says Stark.  “OK, Howard was a drunken asshole and Maria barely remembered I existed, but they were my parents.  Whatever sappy ideas you’ve got about your old tentmate, forget it.”

“No sap,” Steve says.  “But if you let anger drive you too hard you’ll make mistakes.  We can’t afford any more of those.”

“Don’t act like I’m the one that always makes them.” Stark says.  “I’m doing this, with you or without.”

Later Natasha says, “Maybe you should sit this out, Steve.”

“No need to treat me like I’m compromised,” Steve says.  “This isn’t the man I knew.”

The Soldier will likely go down fighting, he thinks.  He’d like to be able to bury the body. 

~~~

Days pass, the team makes no progress tracking the Soldier and if Stark makes any he doesn’t tell Steve.  Sam tells Steve he needs to get out more, so he tries. 

“You know this isn’t what I had in mind,” Sam tells him, looking at the row of headstones.

“Dugan’s buried here,” Steve tells him.  “I like to pay my respects.” 

 Sam to his credit doesn’t accuse Steve of being morbid.  He waits while Steve pours half a bottle of beer over the grave and drinks the other half, and only then does he suggest they go into the nearby town for a snack.  Steve doesn’t even have his shield, but that doesn’t give him pause when he catches sight of a man he could swear is Rumlow.

They lose the man in a rundown part of town, but Steve is determined not to give up, they split up and begin to search the mostly abandoned buildings.  Steve finds nothing except a stray dog, which eyes him warily, and a lot of bugs and spiders, he’s beginning to think this is another failure when his phone buzzes.

The man slumped forward in the empty work shop Sam has found isn’t Rumlow.  It’s the Winter Soldier.

~~~

The Soldier should have dropped this after London, gone back to slicing off heads.  London, where a promising lead had turned out to be a decoy, where a building went up minutes after he’d left it.  He’d run back, long dormant first aid skills in his head, but veered off again at the first glimpse of War Machine.  The Avengers are working on the rescue then, no need for him.  This isn’t as bad as Durban anyway.

He’d been in Durban tracking an arms dealer, when hell in the form of the Hulk had broken loose.  Because something in him stupidly runs towards the sounds of screams and chaos that’s what he’d done, arriving only after the battle was over but before the emergency services had had time to get to grips with the aftermath.  The Avengers had been nowhere around that time, indeed he’d only found out some time afterwards what had happened.  He’d gone to work without thought, hauling fallen beams and lumps of concrete aside, looking for those buried in the street when a towering building had collapsed.  Mostly all he’d found were the dead.

He puts some distance between himself and London before following the news, and finding a further backlash against the Avengers.   Nobody seems to be linking the explosion to HYDRA, but not everything that is known ends up on the news.  He’s put some further distance, let some time lapse, before he takes the risk of finding another contact – not a HYDRA true believer this one, just scavenging small fry on the flanks of the killer pack – and finds his wanted status has gone up, that indeed not everything the security forces think they know is public, and one of the not public things is a belief he caused the explosion.

That would have been the time to quit.  But this stuff is big, and he’s close to closing the links, getting the proof.  This stuff matters, and so he chases the latest thread across the globe, chases it right to New York state even though he’s really not comfortable being on the Avengers home turf.   He gets some intel from a phony delivery company near New Jersey, but it’s not enough, so he takes another risk, tries another contact, and doesn’t learn his mistake until it’s too late.

Rumlow must have been lying in wait.  The Soldier could have taken him, no problem, but he can’t do a thing when Rumlow has a gun to a kid’s head.

The kid looks about seven, with olive skin, a shock of blue-black hair and an Iron Man T-shirt, a pointless detail which the Soldier’s mind records automatically.  There’s tear tracks on his face, above the hand clamped over his mouth.  Probably nobody would hear here if he screamed anyway. 

“Moment of truth,” Rumlow’s voice is different below the skull mask he sports now.  “You’ve got ideas about being a good guy, Asset.  Good guys don’t let kids die.”

“And what does that make you,” he spits, but he’s already got the taste of defeat in his mouth.

“A winner,” Rumlow says.  “Now I want all your weapons in that corner over there.”  He takes the hand that’s on the boy’s mouth away, and pulls something from a back-pocket.  The Soldier recognises it: a hand held scanning device.  “Don’t try to cheat.”

He doesn’t.  He stacks his weapons methodically, leaves his best knife until the last, putting it a little aside from the pile.  He can hear the terrified sob in the kid’s breathing.  What now, he wonders, as he stands.  Without a weapon he can still take Rumlow, and Rumlow has to know it.  Gas?  There’s probably a filter built into that mask , but a gas that would knock him out would kill the child. Through the constriction of fear in his gut he hears Rumlow say, “Over there, against the machine.”

It’s old, the machine, though likely not as old as he is, it’s not HYDRA, not that that will help him now.  Rumlow wants to take him back, he’s certain of that, and it’s like trying to walk through thick black sludge, trying to keep his mind at work through the fear.  They will strip him down, flay his mind away piece by piece. 

“You see that wooden chock,” says Rumlow.  “Reach through with your left arm, and take it out.  There’s lots of painful ways to shoot someone you know.”

He does know.  He remembers bullets slamming into his gut, when he tried to resist the wipe.  He doesn’t remember how many times, but his body still knows the pain.  The kid can’t ever have known that pain, but there’s terror in every line of him all the same. 

He has to crouch to reach through.  There’s no choice really, so he knocks the chock away and what feels like a ton of metal crash down on his left wrist.  It’s not exactly pain that spasms through him, but it’s bad.  His breathing is getting faster, some part of him that never stops calculating notes that, even as the rest of him fights not to spiral into panic.  This is what HYDRA could never erase.  The animal terror of being trapped and hurt, the flashes of red on snow, the grind of the bone-saw.  This was where the wipes always broke down.  Never in the field, never when he had the shadow of autonomy.

The bit that never stops calculating, that has kept him alive when he should never have lived, that bit sees Rumlow spin the boy round to face him.  “If you tell anyone about this, I will find you, and I will slice your fingers off one by one.  Now run.”

The boy bolts at once, stumbling on his frantic path to the door.  Not a useless sacrifice then.    Rumlow walks across, slowly, deliberately, picking up a long bolt of wood on the way, and the Soldier knows what is coming.  The plank thwacks into him, he doesn’t cry out.  He’s had much worse, but it’s been a while, and he knows how very much worse this is likely to get. 

Grabbing the machine with his free arm he swings himself off the ground, catches the spar between his legs and twists, bruising his flesh but wrenching the spar from Rumlow’s hand.  He angles his legs to hit Rumlow with it, a hard blow across the chest that sends Rumlow staggering back, gives the Soldier enough time to get the spar into his free hand instead.  Even his flesh arm is strong enough to swing it, but Rumlow is well trained and rolls out of the way with only a glancing blow to the side of the head.  Even that makes him curse and stagger, and as he gets to his feet, the Soldier gets another blow in to the back of his knees which knocks him flat, then another across his legs as he rolls away.  Then Rumlow is out of reach, behind the machine where the angle is all wrong.  He does something the Soldier can’t see, then electricity shoots through the machine, through the metal arm and through his body.  He spasms in agony, throat too closed off to scream, then when it ends Rumlow gives him a few seconds of shuddering and gasping before he does it again. 

The second time is longer.  He can’t see properly when Rumlow finally stops it, but he knows exactly what look will be on the man’s face.  He’s not out of pain yet, but he gets his legs under him, so he’s not just hanging limply from the arm.  Not that he can do anything about whatever’s about to happen, but this too is something they never quite wiped out.  When all you have left is how you face your torture, then how you face it matters. 

The shots from outside are deafening.  A voice distorted by electric signal crackles from one doorway “War Machine in position,”; one from another calls out, “Roger that, Captain there’s only the two.”  The Soldier’s head whips round to one door, then the other, then back to Rumlow as he makes a break for the third door.  He’s unsteady, stumbling, cradling one arm.  The Soldier’s blows must have done some damage after all. 

He can’t pull his shoulders up, his body is still weak from agony, but he recognises the man who steps through the doorway, stops just inside.  He knows the man’s name now, has seen him on television next to Rogers.  The man just waits, until the Soldier’s hearing picks up hurrying footsteps, then he steps back out the door.  Not much time passes before he comes back in, and Steven Grant Rogers steps through the other door at the same moment.

They take their time, walking towards him with the unhurried step of predators closing in.  Wilson is in front, Rogers on his right, but he changes course slightly, so he’s slightly behind the Soldier, out of his sightline unless the Soldier were to twist painfully and then he’d lose sight of Wilson.

Ice spreads from his stomach through his aching body, because he knows this.  This unhurried circling of a trapped victim, it’s always the prelude to blows.  They are letting fear anticipate pain. 

They don’t strike him yet.  They stop, looking down from the height of their freedom like he’s a bug at their feet.  That’s close enough to the truth, and the knowledge sinks deeper than the fear. 

 “What happened here?” Wilson asks.  Rogers is still behind the Soldier, making his shoulder blades prickle with dread.  He can give a report though.  He has given a great many of those and whatever they might do can’t be worse than leaving him here for Rumlow.  So he keeps his eyes dead ahead and in a flat monotone he reports.  Reports London, and the blast moments after he left.  Reports coming here in search of HYDRA leads and being ambushed.  He doesn’t report the whole of the vibranium trail, because it would take so long, and everything hurts, and he doesn’t mention the kid because he doesn’t want these men going after the child, maybe scaring the hell out of him.

When he’s done Rogers finally crosses to Wilson and the Soldier can’t help but sag a little in relief at having them both in view again.  Rogers hasn’t spoken to him at all, and he doesn’t look at the Soldier now.  There’s a word for this he’s learned.  Dehumanisation.  But perhaps it doesn’t apply if you were never human in the first place.

They’re going to do what they’re going to do, and there’s nothing he can do to stop them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put the Hulk rampage in Durban, although it was filmed in Johannesburg, because the city where it happens is supposed to be on the coast and Johannesburg is not on the coast.


	3. There's a room where the light won't find you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a brief consideration of suicide, and a lot of angst

It’s a pity Rumlow got away, but as Sam says, he had to improvise.  Firing into an empty oil drum then using a spare comlink turned up to maximum volume to create an impression of enemies closing in on all sides had been damn smart, and a good thing Sam had a handgun on him.  “I always carry a handgun these days,” Sam says.  “You get into too much trouble.”  It unreasonable of Steve to wish it had been Rumlow they’d caught and not the Winter Soldier, but Rumlow would have been so much easier to deal with, especially after they’ve heard the Soldier’s story.

“We need to get that arm disabled before we do anything with him,” Sam says.  “We’ve no way of knowing what it can do.”

Steve agrees, but vetoes calling Stark.  He doesn’t believe the Soldier’s story necessarily, but he’s certain Stark would refuse to believe it.  With his money and connections he’d probably have the Soldier away from the Avengers before you can say ‘assassination’ and they’d lose the chance to get any more intelligence from him.  Perhaps before the London massacre Stark would have listened to counter arguments, but his attitude has hardened since. 

In the end Sam calls a guy he knows who goes by Ant-Man.  Then he calls Rhodes to pick Ant-Man up, then Steve and Sam stand around uncomfortably for a while, before Steve remembers they are not just dealing with an awkward bit of machinery.  It would be so much easier if they were, but it will be harder if the Soldier resists co-operation.

Steve makes himself stand in front of the Soldier, but avoids looking at his face.  “We’ll get you out of that thing if you let us disable the arm first.”

“All right,” the Soldier replies.  It’s the same flat tone he’s been using all the time, but it’s still Bucky’s voice.  It’s not hoarse with disuse, he must have been talking to people.  Steve can feel a tension headache building. 

“We’ll protect you from HYDRA,” Steve says, “if you come to HQ and tell us anything that might be helpful.”

“All right.”  He wonders if there’s anything the Soldier wouldn’t agree to.

Ant-Man doesn’t seem particularly thrilled about working with them, and Steve wonders briefly what inducements Sam had held out.  The metal arm interests him though.  The Soldier sits quietly, shoulders bowed, yet tense, until suddenly there’s a slight slump in the arm, held as it is, the slump is only slight, but a few moments later Lang emerges and grows back to full size.

“There’s an off-switch,” he says.  “Quite simple.”

Steve suspects it may not be as simple as that, but the job is done, so he thanks Lang, tells him his fee will be paid at HQ, then turns his attention to extricating the Soldier from the vice.  It’s not hard; Rumlow had obviously intended to be able to do it after all.  The Soldier stands on his own, once it’s done, cradling the disabled arm in his good one.  Steve feels a spasm of horror, because that’s Bucky’s body standing there next to him.  All that is left of his dearest friend, with a chunk of HYDRA metal hanging from the shoulder and dirty hair across his face. 

Belatedly Steve remembers the discarded pile of weaponry at the side of the room, and he and Sam load themselves up with it, while Rhodes stands guard.  There’s one knife, with a notched handle, that Steve turns over in his hands briefly.  It’s just a knife, of a pattern seemingly unchanged since his first war, which will always be **the** war.  It can’t mean anything, but he slips it into his belt anyway. 

“Back to base then,” he says.  The Soldier says nothing. 

~~~

Back at HQ with Sam having taken on the job of stowing the shell that once was Bucky somewhere safe Steve calls a meeting. 

“He could be playing you, Cap,” Rhodes says.

“He could,” Steve allows, “but he also could be a source of valuable intel.  We can’t pass the chance up.  If we tell Tony now he’ll put retribution first.”

“That man killed his parents,” Rhodes points out.

“Is he a man?” says Steve.  “You can’t blame a gun for being fired.”

“Whoah,” says Sam, who had come in just as the meeting was starting.  “Dangerous ground here.  He may not have been able to put his own brakes on back then, but he’s sentient and he feels pain, and that’s good enough for me to call him human.  Which in turn means he has human rights, which include not being locked up indefinitely without charge or trial.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get slapped with any law-suits,” Hill says.

“That’s not the point,” says Sam.

“No, it’s not,” Steve agrees.  “We can’t ignore the law because nobody’s going to challenge us.  That’s where SHIELD went wrong.”  His headache is getting worse, and that’s a pain in every sense, because there’s no headache relief tablets that work on him.  “Has he asked to leave?”

“No,” says Sam.

“Perhaps he won’t.  I did say we’d protect him from HYDRA.  I say we start proper debrief tomorrow.  Wanda, will you sit in, see if you can sense any lies?”

He can tell Rhodes and Hill still aren’t happy, but nobody has any better ideas, so that’s where it rests.  Steve catches Natasha after the meeting has ended.  She’s had nothing to say so far, but he saw her hand drifting to her shoulder.

“Nat, I’m not going to ask you to see him or speak to him.”  Natasha had been shot twice by the Soldier, both wounds had been serious, the first nearly fatal.  Steve knows Natasha likes to act as though nothing can touch her, but he’s not going to expect her to just shrug off trauma like that.  “If you’re not comfortable with him being in the same building I’ll try and find somewhere else tomorrow.”

“It’s not a problem, Rogers,” Natasha says dismissively.  Steve’s not convinced, but Natasha will get hostile if he tries to push.  Sometimes she reminds him a lot of himself.

“OK,” he says, “But if it becomes a problem, tell me.  We can move him.”

“It won’t become a problem.  Not for me at least.  You’re the one that’s looking like you just gone three rounds with Ultron, and don’t try to fool me that getting shot doesn’t count if you’ve got the serum.”

“That’s not –” Steve starts, then changes it to “what I was going to say.”  Because the helicarrier isn’t the point.  His memories of it are fractured, but although he knows he nearly died it’s the agony in his mind he remembers, not any pain of the body.  And that pain would be just as bad if he and the Soldier had never fought, if they’d found him in a cyrofreeze tube.

“Steve,” Natasha says gently.  “Don’t pretend you can be impersonal about this.”

“Impersonal, no.”  Steve agrees.  “But it’s not what Rhodes thinks.  I know he’s not Bucky.  Seeing him makes me remember how Bucky died, that’s all.”

“That’s quite a lot,” Nat says, and she must know he wasn’t thinking of the train.  It wasn’t the fall that killed Bucky.  “Go easy on yourself for once, Steve.  Don’t sit in on the debriefs.”

Steve nods, slowly, because it’s always hard for him to believe that cutting himself some slack can be the right thing to do. 

He takes a couple of hours mindless exercise in the gym, then goes to his room.

He’s compromised on this, sure enough, but he’s not entirely sure how.  He doesn’t know whether he wants an excuse to put the Soldier down so he can bury Bucky’s body, freed of its HYDRA created intruder, or whether he wants there to be something salvageable so the body at least, the body Steve had once known so intimately, can live out a reasonable life somewhere a long way away from the man who had failed Bucky so badly.

Steve has always been a private person, and he’s glad of it, because the others would be even more certain his judgement was haywire, if they knew the history books had left out a few things about Bucky and himself. 

The thing was, back then Steve hadn’t thought it made much of a difference.  They were friends, and if they also pleasured each other off and on, that was nobody else’s business.   It had been an understood thing between them that this wasn’t forever.  They’d never said it in so many words, but they’d talked enough about girls and marriage; Steve maybe with a bit more urgency than Bucky, because he’d wanted someone who would promise him in sickness and in health so badly.  It had been understood, and that summer when Bucky was going with Maggie Grice who had red curls and a wicked line in jokes, that summer everything between them had stopped, without a word, and Steve had tried to brace himself to be alone.  Even started to reckon up what kind of place he could afford by himself, which wasn’t much.  It hadn’t been a good few months.  Then suddenly it was over.  Maggie was going with Mickey Flanagan and Bucky didn’t seem sorry at all. 

Then there’d been the serum, and there’d been Peggy.  Peggy, so amazing he could never quite believe she wanted him, Steve Rogers, still a skinny kid from Brooklyn when you got down to it.  And there’d been Bucky, by his side as ever, uncomplainingly shouldering the task of turning a USO performer whose military knowledge consisted of a lot of books and a few days basic training into a decent officer.  There had still been jokes, still teasing, and it’s only looking back Steve can see he wasn’t the only one who’d changed.  Bucky had closed himself off, so subtly Steve hadn’t even noticed.

Except that one night, that first trip back in London, put up by the Army at a hotel that had one wing bombed out.  Bucky reaching for him with hands and mouth, “Just once, Steve.  Want to try out that new body .”  And Steve had gone along.  He’d wanted to test the new body as well, not that there hadn’t been some experiences with girls on his USO tour, but he’d quickly realised they saw a muscular body and nothing else.  He wanted to know what it would be like with Bucky just once, even as his conscience threw up Peggy in the red dress, giving what might have been a promise.

It hadn’t been quite satisfying.  Steve still  getting used to his new strength, had been too afraid of hurting, still gripped by the fear of how fragile Bucky had looked on that table, even though he’d recovered fast (too fast, looking back).  But he’d never, even with Peggy’s hand finding an excuse to linger over his in planning sessions, he’d never regretted they’d had that night.

“So sorry, Buck,” he whispers, turning the Soldier’s knife in his hands like a penance.  Wherever Bucky’s gone he can’t hear Steve now.

Steve had killed Bucky, even if it was HYDRA that did the dirty work.  And the world had the stupidity to call him a hero.  Nights like this he wonders if he should be trying to lead the Avengers at all, but he knows he’s not going to walk away when this is all he has.

~~~

It’s not a bad room they’ve put him in, apart from having no windows.  Better than a lot of places he’s paid for, since he got free from HYDRA.  But it’s still a cage.

The Soldier doesn’t try the door.  He’s seen the security on this place when they brought him in, the door would be the least of his obstacles, and he’s already seen the ceiling camera, they’ll know if he tries the door to see if it’s locked. 

He’d known his run couldn’t last forever, but it’s harder than he’d expected to accept it’s over.  Although it hadn’t been much of a life by any normal standards it had been his.  The choices had been his, the decisions had been his, it had been freedom, and he hadn’t known until now how much that had mattered.

His mind is skittering worse than it has in months, in a cage, with no mission to focus on it would be so easy to lose control.  He tries instead to focus on testing his body.  Pressing against his ribs hurts like hell, but he can’t feel anything grating, so they’re probably not broken.  That’s good, he doesn’t think he could control himself right now if medics tried to put hands on him. 

Rumlow had been bad, his body had grown used to not being brutalised.  But it had been a brutality he knew how to survive, already it was blending into the other tortures HYDRA had inflicted.  Rogers and Wilson looming over him, rubbing in their power and his powerlessness, talking coldly over his head like he wasn’t a person at all, like the HYDRA scientists had done so often, that had left him shaken right down to his marrow.  They hadn’t hurt him, but they hadn’t needed to.  They’d made their point effectively, made it clear just what he was.  An animal.  A bloodstained tool.  He’d known it already; it’s stupid to be so shocked.

The arm is making it worse, the dead weight of the metal pulling painfully at his shoulder.  Like this he can’t fool himself it’s anything other than a grafted monstrosity.  He can fight with the arm like this if he has to, HYDRA made very sure of that.  But it’s dragging him back to the first days, that had also been the last days, the days in that cold concrete cell, shackled to the floor, the newly grafted arm disabled to stop him using it against his creators.  Bucky Barnes hadn’t been completely erased then, he’d still known HYDRA for the enemy not matter how much programming they’d tried to dump in his tortured mind.  Wiping a whole life hadn’t been possible all in one go.  They’d left the arm disabled until the Winter Soldier’s agonising birth and James Barnes’ agonising death had been complete. 

He’d found the cell again, from the SHIELD leaked information.  Under the first SHIELD base at Camp Lehigh.  He’d found his way down into the wrecked remains, taken what remained of the place apart and much good that had done.  It was still there in his head, trapping him in another form.  Here he was again, in another base that was SHIELD in all but name.  Full circle.

There’s a razor blade concealed in the index finger of his left hand, two cyanide capsules tucked under a plate he’d loosened at the top of his shoulder.  He’s not sure either would kill him, but they’re what he’s got.  Not yet, he thinks.  They want information from him.  If what’s in his head can help them stop HYDRA creating more like him he needs to give it to them.  Even if it costs him his last form of escape.  He can’t die yet, and he can’t let himself fall into the mindless, aimless rage in which he’d wrecked abandoned bases and a couple of motel rooms when the memories piled up too high.  If he wrecks this room it will go badly for him.

He draws in long deep breathes, focuses on numbers, the simple times table working up to the familiar patterns of sniper trajectories.  He is a weapon, so be it.  He finds his way down to the place in his mind with the thick glass walls.  The fear and the rage are still there, but on the other side, the skittering of his mind throwing up the razor memories is still there, but outside the closed off centre.   He can function like this, not optimally, but enough to satisfy HYDRA in the briefings and debriefings, when being slow might get him hit like malfunctioning machinery but nothing worse.  It wouldn’t do in the field, but he never needed it in the field when the mission was enough for focus. 

This is what made him a murderer.  HYDRA had never succeeded in making him a machine.  Had he crumbled entirely under the weight of the horror, become a catatonic shell, there would have been nothing they could do except keep his remains for vivisection.  It was because his mind had found ways to survive they had been able to use him as their weapon.  He thinks something of the kind had begun to develop in Barnes before the fall, the memories tell him however bad Barnes had the shakes at night his hands were always steady on the trigger. 

He’s sitting on the bed, still running trajectories in his mind, when Wilson comes back with a couple of other guys, who look like security of some kind.  One has a tray of food and another a set of overalls.

“I’d suggest you take a shower,” Wilson says.  “You probably need it.  Is there anything you want?”

Admitting to wanting is never good, admitting to wanting is handing them a weapon.  But Wilson must be able to see how the arm hanging limp is weighing him down, so he won’t be revealing anything Wilson doesn’t know already.

“A sling,” he says, from the far side of his glass barrier. 

“Right,” Wilson says.

By the time he comes back with it the Soldier has thought of something else.  Even a weapon can be polite.

“I’m sorry for shoving you off the helicarrier.”  Admitting to emotion is as bad as admitting to want, but he owes Wilson this.  He can’t look him in the face as he says it though.

“Apology accepted,” Wilson says.  He sounds a bit surprised.  “You going to eat that?”

“Yes,” says the Soldier.

He does eat, once Wilson has gone, not knowing or caring what it is that he is eating.  The serum demands a lot of food, it had been standard protocol on missions to eat what he could, when he could.  Sometimes this had led to his taking food from members of the STRIKE team, which he’s not at all sorry about.  After he got free eating had been a problem for a bit, not because he couldn’t but because the fact they’d wanted him to keep eating made him want not to, to assert his control over his body no matter how much it cost in hunger.  That had been stupid.  It had been easier once he’d been able to appreciate taste again, then could think of that ability as a victory, something regained from HYDRA.  Now the control is gone he wants not to eat, but he makes himself do it. 

The sling helps.  Camp Lehigh has receded a little now his arm is supported.  Thinking is easier.

He hadn’t known what to expect from Rogers, but it certainly hadn’t been cold indifference.  He’d thought Rogers might still believe he was Bucky Barnes, had thought he might have to convince him otherwise.  He had thought Rogers might be enraged at him for stealing Bucky’s body, might tear into him with words or even with fists.   

He realises now he had had a small hidden hope that Rogers might be able to work some magic that would turn him back into James Barnes.  Might be able to build on what he had done on the helicarrier, dragging the echoes of Barnes that remained into the day.  Cruelly, he had not been completely wrong.  The first thing he had felt when Rogers stepped through the door in that workshop had been a rush of relief that could only have come of the remains of Bucky Barnes certain Steve had come for him again; a relief that had only made the dread that followed sharper.  Now there is desolation running through him, from shredded, nearly buried, places.  Bucky Barnes had loved Steve Rogers, he knows now, loved him in every way there was with a strength that had endured beyond his death.  If Steve Rogers had seen nothing but HYDRA’s killer that’s all that can ever be there, the echoes that remain of Bucky just enough to deepen his anguish at the knowledge of all he is and can never be.

But dwelling on that won’t get him anywhere.  Right now he needs to shower.  Wilson might have phrased it as a suggestion, but he’s not about to risk finding it had been an order.  He hates showers, they are too like the cyrofreeze chamber, and if he were on his own he’d probably put off getting cleaned up until morning at least.  But he has no choices here, and if it means having to retreat further behind the glass walls again it does. 

He exercises first, however, and the routine is calming, even as he worries they will see it as training to take them down.  He has to stay in shape to carry the weight of the arm, this much he knows, and although the weight of the disabled limb makes it awkward, HYDRA had devised exercises for this situation as well.  He loathes that so much of what he is now comes from them, but today has shown him more than ever there is nothing he can do to change that, so he counts his way through the routines. 

The shower has a warm setting at least.  He’d better start listing the good things.  Afterwards he dresses in the overalls – they don’t look like prison issue, but that doesn’t mean anything – and lies down on the bed, invoking stillness, the extension of sniper’s patience he’d learned long ago. 

If he’s here for long he will lose all the progress he has made.  He is already falling back into the patterns he had learned from HYDRA, locking himself down.  Too long and he’ll lose all his had learned about being human.  That rouses up the anger, but it’s unfocused and defeated.  It doesn’t matter what he loses now, he’s lost already.

He doesn’t expect to sleep, not without the comfort of his flesh hand curled round the handle of his preferred knife.  He doesn’t sleep, but his mind wanders creating scenes in his head.  He knows they’re not real, that he could pull himself out if he tried, but there’s very little point to it.

 In his mind he is back in the workshop arm trapped, and Steve Rogers kneels in front of him so their eyes are level and hopes out a careful hand, resting it on the Soldier’s shoulder.  “Bucky,” Rogers says, “I thought you were dead,” and the grip on his arm melts away, letting him fall forward against Roger’s shoulder. 

“I am dead,” he says.  “Didn’t you know?”

In his dream he lies shackled to the floor on Camp Lehigh, and Rogers stands over him, talking coldly to a white coated man, saying, “I expected this to be easier.”

“I am here,” he screams, but Rogers does not look at him.


	4. A warning to the people

The Soldier agrees to have Wanda sit in on the debriefings; Steve pictures him doing it with the same apathy he’s agreed to have his arm disabled.  He takes Natasha’s advice and lets Rhodes and Hill handle things. 

It takes only one session before they need to call another meeting. 

“Helmut Zemo?” Wilson says.  “Seriously?  Mr Midas?”

“He’s been talked of as a future presidential candidate,” Steve says, then realises how stupid it sounds. 

“I know exactly how serious it is,” says Hill.  “Which is why we’re having this meeting.”

“He’s not lying,” Wanda says firmly.

“That doesn’t mean it’s true,” Rhodes says.  “HYDRA could have implanted this in his mind.  The whole thing could be a set-up.”

“Or it could be true,” says Hill.

“Or it could be true,” Rhodes agrees.  “Pierce was talked of as a Presidential candidate as well.”

“The part about the vibranium rings true at least,” said Natasha.  “My sources say theft of vibranium is the reason Wakanda has finally decided to engage with the outside world.

“OK,” Steve says, “See what else you can find out about that.  I’ll visit Zemo.”

“Be careful,” several people say in unison.  “If it’s true we don’t want him knowing we suspect,” Natasha finished.

“I’ll play it dumb,” Steve promised.  “I’ll pretend I’m looking for new funding for the Avengers in case the lawsuits bankrupt Tony Stark.”

“Stark’s not going to want to believe this,” Natasha says.  “He and Zemo go to each other’s parties.”

“It’s more than that,” Rhodes says.  “They’ve been consulting on how to prevent the next alien invasion.”

“Well, I’m glad Tony’s consulting someone,” Steve says. 

It’s Rhodes who corners him this time after the meeting is over.  “Cap,” he says.  “If it turns out it is a set-up.  Nobody’s going to judge you for wanting to believe him.”

“I’m following a potential lead, that’s all,” Steve says.  “I know you find it hard to believe I know my best friend is dead.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rhodes says.  “Because I know in your place I wouldn’t want to believe it.”

~~~

The meeting with Zemo doesn’t go great.  Zemo is polite and seemingly straightforward and quickly deflects the conversation into discussing the need to be prepared for the next alien strike.  He doesn’t in fact say a thing Steve disagrees with.  Steve doesn’t think he’s given anything away, but he goes out with no more idea whether Zemo could be HYDRA than he had going in.

~~~

It’s the evening after the second debriefing session that the Soldier has his first visitor.

“I’m Wanda Maximoff.”

“I know who you are,” the Soldier says.  “The mind reader.”  He doesn’t say she terrifies him.  She probably knows anyway. 

“I don’t read your thoughts,” she says.  “I don’t read anyone’s.  I’ve sworn I won’t, not ever again.  I just detect feelings.”

He’s not reassured, it’s not like he would know if she is reading his mind.

“So what should I call you?” she says.

“I don’t have a name.”  He’s decided he prefers Winter Soldier to the Asset, but that’s still a designation, not a name.

“I was told…” she starts, then stops.

“I’m not James Barnes.” 

The silence stretches out.  The Soldier sees no reason to fill it.  She will explain herself, they always do.

“You haven’t asked what I feel from you.”  He continues to say nothing.  “I feel a lot of pain.”

This doesn’t surprise him.  Except…

“Do I feel human to you.”

“Yes.”

That’s good.  Probably.

“You haven’t asked why I’m here.”

“No.”

“You can’t like just sitting here, staring at the wall.  In fact I know you don’t like it.  That’s why.”

Ah.  He knows this.  This is the part where one of the interrogators acts like a friend, encouraging you to open up about anything you held back in the formal sessions.  That’s OK.  He can play along.  He’s glad they didn’t send Rogers.

She produces a pack of cards.  “I brought these to give you something else to think about.”

There are no questions, that first evening.  They just play Snap.  When Wanda goes she leaves the cards, in a small box. On the surface a kindness, but he knows there is no kindness for those in cages.  But his mind cries for distraction, too many fragments slicing, all horrors.  Strapped down in laboratories, shackled to the chair, locked into the cryofreeze chamber. 

They won’t wipe him or freeze him, not as long as they want intel.  But his flesh hand is slippery and there is chill right down to the bones.

Focus.  He turns the cards in his one working hand, trying to treat them as an exercise in analysis. They’re a souvenir pack, from the National Gallery of Art, a different art work on all of them.  There is something… he reaches painfully, and another memory pulls out.  They always hurt, but he prefers this hurt.   Bucky Barnes had gone with Steve to that museum, soon after it opened.  It had been on his first leave, using his army pay for the train fare for both of them.  He hadn’t had the eye for art that Steve did, but Steve had been eager to talk about the works.  Steve always lit up, when he was enthusiastic – and there is the pain.

Another memory from back in those hideous labs at Lehigh, back when he’d still known them for enemies.  Still spat in their faces and tried to make them kill him. 

_“Your Captain abandoned you,”_   That had been Zola.  So smug, always so smug.  _“Left you to bleed out in the snow.  He didn’t care.  You’d served your purpose, broken tools are discarded.”_

Bucky hadn’t believed it, but as Bucky had been eroded piece by piece the words had started to take on a meaning.  When he could no longer remember who ‘the Captain’ was the idea the Captain had betrayed him became believable.

If anyone here has been betrayed, it isn’t him.

As an exercise he tries looking at the cards, to see if he recognises any of them.  But his mind can’t seem to take them in properly.  He sees them, he can hold a card in his hand and say that collection of dots is a bridge over lilies, but he can’t look at it in a way that’s not an Asset trying to report.  He should be able to, he has been seeing beauty in the most sudden ways: an advertising poster, a clump of poppies at the edge of a building site, an arched concrete bridge spanning a road.  He’s seen and loved honest ugliness too.  But he can’t picture any of that properly here.  

He still needs distraction.  Bucky Barnes had known four different versions of solitaire, including one with the cards in a clock shape it is almost impossible to get out.  It’s reckless, to start using something that can be taken from him, but there isn’t anything they can’t take and it won’t help anyone if his mind disintegrates.  So he plays all the different versions. 


	5. Why no-one else can see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some references to the Nat/Bruce from AoU in this chapter, but I didn't tag it because it's just Nat talking about what went wrong

The Soldier is aware they may torture him, so it is unreasonable that a mere suggestion from Wilson the next morning should send him close to panic. 

“We have therapists, counsellors. All vetted very carefully.  Totally discreet.”

“Is that an order?” the Soldier says.  He’ll never trust any head doctor SHIELD send in, but even if he believed they wouldn’t simply be looking for weaknesses, laying out his feelings on a slab is not a choice. 

“Hell, no” says Wilson immediately.  “Therapy’s no good without trust, and I don’t see you trusting someone we forced you into seeing.  It’s an offer.”

“No.”  The tone is cold because of the intensity of relief that they’re not going to try and force him.  He knows what therapy is, he’s researched methods of dealing with trauma on line.  He knew from the first moment he read about it spilling his guts to a stranger was unthinkable.  The compulsion to lock all feelings, all vulnerability, deep inside had been stamped marrow deep by the agonies HYDRA had inflicted at any sign of returning humanity.  If he could just magic all that away, he’d be able to do it with the rest of his trauma as well, and there’d be no problem left.  If SHIELD had insisted he wouldn’t be able to co-operate, not even if the alternative was a bullet in the head. 

Wilson doesn’t stay to watch breakfast brought in.   Instead there’s a guard who sneers, “You’re gonna fry when they’re done with you, filth,” and spits deliberately on the food.   

He simply looks up allowing his body to settle into a fight-ready stance.  He can recognise the fear that passes over the guard’s young face, before he doubles down on the sneer, and plonks the tray down, deliberately allowing it to slop, before backing out the door with a final “Should have waterboarded an animal like you already.”

He feels ashamed.  The guard was just a kid.  And not so wrong either, his reaction had been an animal one, a trapped animal showing claws and teeth. 

He eats the food.  He doesn’t have much of a revulsion reflex.

~~~

The second evening Wanda says, “I know you are grieving.”

“No,” he says abruptly, the word slipping out, even from behind the locked glass walls.

“I know what grief feels like.  I haven’t looked at your thoughts, but I can feel the loss.”

“You’re not feeling grief,” he says.  What he feels isn’t their business.  What he feels is locked away, has been locked away since his birth at Lehigh, because showing he felt was never smart.

“My parents were killed in front of me when I was a child,” Wanda says.  “My brother was killed last year, fighting Ultron.  I felt him die.  Don’t tell me I don’t recognise grief.”

It’s not all a ploy.  There’s been enough about her in the reports on the Avengers he knows it’s not.  And that means he has to give her more, even if it’s mostly a ploy he can’t let her think they are in any way the same. He should give her honesty, even while he resents she’s pulled this out of him.  Because this is nothing to do with SHIELD, or whatever they are calling themselves these days.

“It’s not grief,” he says.  “I’ve some of James Barnes’ memories.  He had family.  Younger sisters.”  Barnes’ parents had died before the war, but his sisters had been living.  “In his memories they’re still young.  He never saw them grow old.”  The youngest is still alive.  He’d looked them up.  “That’s probably what you’re feeling.”  Not just for them, for the Commandos and for other friends and even for Steve Rogers.  “It’s…” He can’t say it.  Can’t describe the sense of something wrong and lacking.  They were never his to lose, and they had decent lives as far as he can discover.    “It isn’t grief,” he says, and he holds in the hard, inexplicable anger.   “They weren’t my family.”

They play the next hand in silence, then Wanda says, “The others still think this might be a set-up.  I think if it was, you’d be claiming you are Barnes.”

“Rogers would see through that,” he says. 

“Rogers is grieving too,” Wanda says.  “It pours off him, but he won’t talk about it either.”

Grieving for Barnes, the Soldier thinks.  Best friend, family in all but name, lover even, although probably only for want of a better alternative.  He wonders how many people even know of the last.  It hadn’t been in any of the books.

~~~

Steve has been concentrating on the Soldier hard enough that the Accords blindside him.

Oh, he’d known about the arguments over greater oversight of the Avengers and other ‘superheroes’ as the press calls them (Steve doesn’t like the name).  He doesn’t disagree with the arguments for oversight and accountability, as long as the processes are transparent.  The Avengers aren’t any better than regular people just because they have more skills, they should not be a law to themselves.  He’d even been relieved Tony Stark had been shaken enough by the Ultron mess he’d come round to supporting more oversight.  What blindsides him is how far it goes.  Individuals on the approved list of superheroes are to be permitted only to act without authorisation, and are not to be permitted to refuse to act when ordered.

“Are you sure you’re not just sore at not being allowed to hurl yourself into a fight whenever you think fit?” Rhodes asks. 

The ice had cured Steve of that.  After he thawed out it had been a relief to come and go, to fight and not fight, as other people decided.  And that had been one of the worst mistakes of his life; he’s not going to make it again.

“It’s not being held back from fighting I’m worried about,” he said.  “It’s not even that politicians and government departments will likely fight like dogs over a bone over when to call the Avengers in.  No, what’s worrying me is that we don’t get to say no.”

 “Soldiers don’t get to choose the wars they fight,” Rhodes says.

“We’re not just soldiers, though,” says Steve.  “Every country can have soldiers.  We’re more like the HYDRA weapons.  How do we know we’ll be used well?  How can we believe that of the people who ordered Project Insight?  We’ll be the big swagger stick, the threat held over countries that don’t fall into line.  Even if they do use us well it will start an arms race, every country wanting their own set of living weapons.”

“Wasn’t a living weapon what you started out as, Steve?” Natasha says.  There’s no judgement in her voice.

“Yes,” Steve admits.  “And I understand Dr Erskine’s reasons.  But how many died, how many lives were ruined by attempts to replicate the serum?  And,” he takes a deep breath afraid he’s going to sound paranoid.  “Do we know HYDRA isn’t behind this?”

“HYDRA?” Hill says sceptically.  “Not everything is HYDRA, Captain.”

“But we have information Zemo might be,” Steve argues.  “And Zemo has the influence to push for something like this.”

“Zemo has made no secret of his concerns about extra-terrestrial threats,” says Hill.  “But we have no reason to think he’s influenced the provisions of the Accords.”

“But we don’t know he hasn’t.  And if he is HYDRA, and the Accords pass we could be prevented from following any leads that point to him.”

“Following the Winter Soldier’s information, you mean,” Sam says neutrally.  “Accepting closer supervision would likely mean handing him over to the Government as well.  You’ll have thought of that.” 

Steve in fact hadn’t thought of it.  “No, but you’re right.  And if the information is true, then Zemo would have every reason to push for his being taken out of our hands.  There are so many reasons to be suspicious about this.”

“Suspicion is easy,” Hill says.  “It won’t stop us needing to obey the law if it comes into force.”

Wanda stays behind in the meeting room after the others have left, twirling a piece of hair round her finger.  She looks very young.

“Will you accept this, if it comes in?”

“That’s not a choice I can jump into,” Steve says.  Captain America has to look before he leaps.

“I don’t think I can,” Wanda says.  “I don’t think I can put myself in Stark’s power.”

“Wanda, this is the Government.  Tony is only supporting it.”

“But he will be their means of enforcement.  Won’t he?”

“In part, perhaps, but Tony is not a cruel man.  I know there is a bad history between the two of you,” Tony didn’t like Wanda any more than she liked him, yet he had still given her lodging after Ultron.  “But he won’t want to do anything to break up the Avengers.”

Wanda looks unhappy.  She doesn’t want to leave the team, Steve realises.  The Avengers are all she has.  The thought of being alone must be terrifying.

“Wanda, those visions you gave us in South Africa.  Do you know what you showed me?”

“No.  I was trained… to apply a certain stimulus.  It’s like – you know how to open an internet browser, but you don’t have to look at what is on the page.  I didn’t want to look.  It might have made me sorry.”

“I didn’t understand why it terrified me at first.” Steve tells her.  “It didn’t seem to be anything I didn’t know already.  What is there to be scared of when it’s happened?  But then I realised it was terrifying because it was wrong.  I saw Peggy, young.  But she was wearing pastel.  I never saw her in pastel.  And she … she wouldn’t have said what the dream showed her saying.  ‘We can go home.’  My home wasn’t her home.  She would have talked about going forward, not back.  It was a travesty.   A Peggy who wasn’t herself, just an extension of me.  It was terrifying because it was fake.  Because I knew it was manipulation.  That was the fear you pulled out.  Being manipulated again. No, you don’t have to say anything.  I’m not trying to make you feel bad.  I want you to know I won’t support this unless I am sure that it is the right thing, that we are not going to be anybody’s puppets.

“And I know what seems right to me may not seem right to you, and I can’t promise I’ll choose the same way you will.  But I can say, whether you stay or not, as far as I’m concerned we’re team mates.  And I don’t turn away from team mates.”

He’s not certain if Wanda is reassured, but she gives him a nod, and lets it drop.

~~~

“If it does come in,” Natasha says to Steve later, over Russian tea, “What then?  Are you going to jack it all in?”

“Live a quiet life, take up hobbies, get a dog?  I wouldn’t know where to start,” Steve admits.  “Do you ever think about it?”

“Yes.  But I don’t feel able to take the leap alone.”  Natasha gives him a half-smile.  “Oh, relax, I’m not propositioning you.  Learned my lesson there with Bruce.” 

There’s been no word on Bruce since Sokovia.  None of them believe he’s dead, it’s highly doubtful he can die, but it seems beyond doubt he doesn’t want to come back.  Whether that’s because of Durban, Ultron or both Steve doesn’t know.  They’ve looked for him, but there comes a time when you have to accept someone just doesn’t want to be found.  Steve wonders sometimes what that says about them, how much they’d all failed at befriending the quiet man who had tried so hard to tame his demons. 

“I think,” Natasha says, “I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I think it was about wanting a life outside of this, rather than wanting Bruce in particular.  I latched onto Bruce because I liked him, but also because I thought he wouldn’t push me away because of my past.  Except he pushed me away anyway.”

“Not because of your past, I’m sure,” Steve says.

“Yeah, I’m sure of that too.  I always was, which I suppose is why I couldn’t accept he meant it.”

“At the risk of sounding like a cheesy magazine advice column,” Steve says, “Perhaps you need to work on the life outside of fighting first, before you look for someone to share it with.”

“At the risk of stating the obvious, you’ve just said it’s not that easy.”

This is Natasha Romanoff, and though Steve doesn’t doubt she’s being honest, he also knows Natasha never shows her vulnerabilities unless she wants something.  Like a quid pro quo.  So it doesn’t surprise him when she asks, “Do you still think you did the right thing taking the serum?”

That’s a question Steve has asked himself plenty of times.  It’s egotistical to think nobody else could have stopped Schmidt and the _Valkyrie_.  Steve had always been one of a team, and perhaps somebody not blinded by the craving for vengeance could have planned that last raid better, so it wouldn’t have ended up so seat of the pants.  There was a time he’d hung onto the thought he’d saved Bucky from that table, but now he knows he didn’t save Bucky, just gave him a few more months of war.  Would the world have been better off if there had never been a Captain America?

“Do you know how my mother died?”  Of course Natasha will know, of course she will have researched him.  “She was a nurse.  Took the TB ward because it paid extra.  We needed the money for medicine, because I was always sick.  Then she got ill.”  He doesn’t say ‘I killed her,’ though he doesn’t think he’ll ever believe otherwise.  He’d said it just once, to Bucky, on the anniversary of her death.  Of course Bucky had tried to convince him it wasn’t his fault, but then Bucky had died for Steve, just like his mother, so clearly Bucky had been wrong about a whole lot of things.  “After that I always felt I had to make my life count for something.”  Or his death.  Frankly he’d never expected to live long.  He can see more clearly now than then that his enlistment obsession had been about looking for a brave way to die as much as anything.  A cold winter, a hot summer, something was going to get him, better it be a war.  “The serum seemed the right thing, but then I had to make the serum count as well.  Was it the right thing?  I’m not sure any longer.  But I know I’m still trying to make it right.”

~~~

“I think my body count may be slightly higher than yours,” Wanda says to the Soldier.  “And that’s only counting Durban, not Ultron.”

They’re playing Rummy tonight.  The last time she was here Wanda had brought him a couple of books, one on American landmarks and the other called _Great Historical Mistakes_.  He’s not sure if he’s meant to be getting some kind of lesson from them.  He resents he’s started to look forward to her visits, because he knows how stupid that is, but he’s not stupid enough to try and take out his anger on someone with her powers.  He’s shredded two blankets with his flesh hand, when he had to destroy something, but there hasn’t been any comeback so they can’t have found it unacceptably unstable.

“Durban?” he says.  He only knows of one incident in Durban involving the Avengers. 

“I caused Durban,” Wanda says.  “I saw the Avengers as my enemies then, so I used my power to provoke the Hulk.  Used him as my weapon.”

The Soldier goes still in his shock.  He had seen the injured, seen the bodies, the destruction this slight girl in front of him is saying she caused.  What does it say about him, he thinks, that his first thought is to be sorry for Banner? 

“There’s a website,” Wanda says.  “Names and faces of all the dead, my dead.  It’s linked all the time by people arguing for tighter controls of powered characters.  I spend a lot of time on it, just looking at the people I killed.”

“Do you regret it?” the Soldier asks.

“Every waking second.  I didn’t want them dead.”  Wanda is pulling nervously at a strand of her own hair.  “I just didn’t think.  Which doesn’t excuse anything at all.  I was in full control.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I told you I sense your feelings.  You feel guilt.  You’ve less reason to than me.”

The Soldier can read emotions.  Body language was part of his training: the right stance for a temporary cover, the right way to read a target.  Maybe his handlers hadn’t thought he’d apply his lessons to them, but he had.  Maybe that was one reason the programming had always broken down so quickly, he was better at knowing when they lied to him than they guessed.

The problem always was knowing why the emotions were there.  With Wanda he had seen she was nervous, not surprising in the room with a body enhanced murderer even if she could make his brain dribble out through his ears, and he had seen that she was determined and hopeful, which he had put down to wanting to prove herself to her team mates.  There’s a sensation suddenly of something shifting in his mind, laying out a different picture, one that might be wrong, but he can’t help a spark of something that’s almost excitement.

“Do you feel anger,” he asks, testing his theory.

“A lot of it.  That was how it started, I was angry at someone.  I wanted him to pay.  Now I have to try and hold the anger in.”

“Anger I understand,” he says.

“I know.”                                                 

“I shot some people in the head.”  It’s nothing he hasn’t told the interrogation squad already.  “I’m not sorry.  But it didn’t help.”

He thinks perhaps the shot in the dark was right.  That Wanda is here because she’d sensed someone who felt like her.  If she’s here for her own reasons, and not as an interrogation ploy it’s not the smartest choice she could have made.  Sooner or later he’ll be sucked dry of knowledge, and then what? 

Rogers doesn’t seem the type to give him a bullet through the head, even if he’s not really human, just a weapon in a stolen body.  Probably not the type to just lock him in a cage and forget him either.  But there’s the legal way.  Evidence enough for multiple death penalties.  He deserves it, no question.  But James Barnes doesn’t deserve to have his name dragged through mud.  HYDRA had left Barnes nothing but his good name, surely Rogers wouldn’t want them to take that as well.  Surely they can charge him as John Doe or something.

There’s another possibility.  He could be a weapon for the Avengers.  Taken out and aimed and locked away.  He could learn to tolerate that, he thinks.  If anyone could be trusted to make the right call on when and where to aim him, he thinks, it’s Steve Rogers.  Better for everyone if he doesn’t have to see Rogers, but that likely won’t be a problem; he hasn’t seen Rogers since the day they brought him in.

That way Wanda will be able to go on visiting until she’s found whatever she’s looking for.  Although it will probably be better for him if she stops coming sooner rather than later.    

He builds card houses that night.  He regrets the present uselessness of his metal hand, dexterous enough, and inhumanly steady, but with perseverance the flesh hand makes progress.  He still looks at the pictures sometimes, trying to see if he can recognise anything.  One of them catches his eye, though not for its qualities.  It’s a triple alter piece, an old one, a Madonna and child in the centre.  Identifying the scene doesn’t mean he responds to it.  But it does make him remember, a little.  Remember how Bucky had been unimpressed by the old religious pictures as they hung on the museum walls.  All too alike, he had thought.  But the altarpiece in an Italian church, shining out as the local people removed its crude war protection, that had caught in his throat.  He remembers that, in shards, but he can’t see any of it.  Still, he can get a fair way before the card house tumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The deck of cards used by Bucky and Wanda is invented, but the pictures are real. The one described at the end of this chapter can be see here http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.206126.html


	6. To fight in someone else’s war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of this was drafted before 'Civil War' came out, so my version of the Accords is rather different from the canon one. And my version of Zemo doesn't have much in common with canon at all

“Satellite photographs,” Natasha says.  “These are from the Nigerian border.

“Do we know for sure it’s vibranium in the trucks?” says Steve.

“Not 100% certain.  But we can track the route almost the whole way from Wakanda.”

“Then it’s time to go and look.”

“Captain,” Hill says.  “Look, I hate to be the party pooper, but we don’t have authority and after Durban we probably wouldn’t be persona grata.  What’s the plural of that?   Never mind, you get the point.”

“Yes,” Steve says, grimly.  SHIELD’s highhandedness hadn’t made them popular outside the US, especially after the file leak.  The Avengers are even less so after the Ultron mess.  “So, we pass the information to the local authorities?”

“It’s a start,” says Natasha, “But there’s more.”

“The paper trail on who pays the truck drivers leads back to the US,” says Hill, “and that’s where we start to come up against some serious blockages.”

“Could it be Zemo?”

“It’s a high place, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Have you run this past Fury?” Steve says, somewhat reluctantly because he’s still mad at Fury for starting SHIELD up again, but there’s nobody better at following twists and turns.

“Incommunicado,” Hill shrugs.

“We’ll keep on it,” Steve says.  He means to, but the next day the Accords are signed.

~~~

“This is wrong,” Sam says angrily.  “Arresting anyone who refuses to comply.  We’re volunteers here.”

“I didn’t write the damn thing,” Hill says wearily.   

“So who did,” Steve says.  “Who benefits?  We were getting somewhere, and now we’re blocked.  Shut down completely, no investigating without clearance.”

“Still think it’s Zemo?” says Hill.

“It’s someone.  And I’m not being jerked around by HYDRA again.”

“It seems to me,” Vision speaks so rarely during group meetings that’s it’s always a surprise to hear his quiet voice, “That your options are really quite limited.”

“Forty-eight hours to report is limited right enough,” Natasha says.

“I will not.”  Wanda speaks almost as seldom as Vision, she’s on her feet now.  “I will not turn myself in to Stark.”

“That’s putting it a bit strong,” Rhodes says.

“Not for me.”  This has always been awkward, Rhodes’ friendship with Tony, Wanda’s continuing distrust of him.  Steve doesn’t think Tony is really the driving force behind the Accords, but it doesn’t surprise him that Wanda does think so.  “I will not report,” she says. 

“That’s not smart,” says Natasha.  “Go on the run and you’re making yourself a public enemy.  They’ll hunt you down.”

“They can try,” Wanda’s chin is raised defiantly, but Steve knows bravado when he sees it. 

“You really want to run from Tony Stark, and the US Government on your own?”

“Not alone,” Steve says standing.  His mind is made up.  Everyone looks at him, several faces openly shocked.

“Cap,” Rhodes starts.  “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I will not be HYDRA’s tool.  Not ever again.  This reeks of HYDRA.”  He walks across to stand by Wanda, knowing it’s a declaration and a challenge.  Who is with me?

Vision is wearing his usual calm expression.  Hill has her professionally discreet face on, the Accords aren’t going to apply to her anyway.  Rhodes looks perturbed.

“You’re needed, Cap.   The world needs the Avengers united.”

“Not like this.  We are not weapons to be taken out and put away with no say in what we do.”

“The hell with it,” Sam says, pushing his chair back and going to stand beside Steve.  “This isn’t right.” Steve feels a rush of warmth and relief, knowing Sam is with him in this.  He can’t help his eyes turning to Natasha.

“Steve,” she says.  “I don’t think you should do this.  I know this is rushed, and stricter than we expected, but if we work with the Accords, we may be able to get the provisions relaxed.  Tony will help on that, I’m sure.  He won’t want to be that restricted either.”

“Restrictions never truly apply to men like Stark,” says Wanda.

“Are you really going to put yourself above the law, Steve?” Natasha asks.  “You’ve always said that was where SHIELD went wrong.”

Steve winces inwardly.  “I don’t see any other way.”

“I can’t be with you on this.  Deciding you can pick and choose what laws to obey, it’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry, Nat,” is all Steve can find to say.

“So am I.”

There is unhappy quiet as the team divides.  Sam and Rhodes have a low toned argument in the corridor for several minutes, then Hill pulls Rhodes aside as well.  The two of them have had something going recently, Steve thought it was just a flirtation but seeing their faces when they come back in he’s no longer so sure.  Rhodes’ last words to Steve are, “I think you are making a great mistake, Captain, but I respect your reasons.”

Natasha gives Sam an impulsive hug, and Steve’s enhanced hearing picks up, “Take care of him, Sam.  And yourself.”  Vision says something quiet to Wanda that Steve purposefully doesn’t listen in on, and Wanda cranes up to kiss him on the cheek.  Vision’s surprised expression as he touches his hand to the spot would have been almost funny at another time.  Afterwards he crosses to Steve and says, “I believe it is correct to report in, but you should know I will not fight against you, Captain.”  Then they are gone.

“What about you,” Steve says to Hill.

“I’ll hand over here, someone needs to stay for the rest of the staff.”  Steve had never been entirely comfortable with the introduction of military style support which seemed to him entirely too much like SHIELD reborn, but it was one of the many things he hadn’t had the energy to fight.  “I don’t agree with the Accords,” Hill says.  “I told Colonel Rhodes I wouldn’t support them.  But you may need somebody not on the run, so here.”  She hands Steve three phones.  “The number is already in, don’t use them for anything else.”

“Thank you,” Steve says.  “Maria, you and Rhodes…”

“That’s for us to work out,” Hill says. 

Steve has his shield, Sam has his wing-pack and they are getting ready to go when Wanda says, “There is someone we are forgetting.  The Soldier.”

Steve had forgotten.  It’s so much easier to not think about him.

“I can hand him over with the rest,” Hill says.

“To Stark?” says Wanda. “What do you suppose Stark will do to him?  He’s been helping us.”

Damn, she was right.  Steve knew Tony wasn’t being rational on this, he also knew that Tony wasn’t all the Soldier might have to worry about.  Steve had read the files on what SHIELD did to powered individuals deemed ‘hostile’ or ‘unstable’, he doesn’t trust still existing security agencies to do any better. 

“We let him go,” he said.

“Cap, that’s a dangerous choice,” says Hill.

“Everything we do is dangerous.  We’ve already agreed we have no right to hold him, and we have no evidence he’s a danger to innocent people.  I’m going to tell him he can go.”

The Soldier stands up as Steve comes in.  His face is a blank, but there’s a flicker in his eyes (Steve always looks at the eyes, it had been an essential skill in back alleys).  It might even be fear.

He explains in as few words as possible, and gets blindsided yet again, this time by the Soldier’s reaction. 

“Take me with you.”

“No,” Steve says instantly.

“You’re going to follow the HYDRA trail,” Steve hasn’t said anything about that, only that he thinks HYDRA might be behind the Act, but the Soldier’s voice is confident anyway.  “So am I.  It’s more efficient if we do it together.”

“Look,” Steve says, “I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but you’re asking me to take one hell of a risk.”

“Letting me go is a risk.  Would you rather have me in your sight or out of it?  I could follow you, and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Steve doesn’t have a ready answer.  It’s true, he took the real risk when he decided to let the Soldier go.  It’s true he really doesn’t want the Soldier following him, and he has no doubt the man could.  But being side by side with Bucky’s body, looking into Bucky’s eyes and seeing that horrible blankness behind them….

“I’m sorry,” the Soldier says unexpectedly.

“For what?”

“For trying to kill you.  For hurting you.  I should have said that first thing.  But I’m also sorry I’m in your friend’s body.  Sorry you have to look at me.  Perhaps you’d prefer me out of sight after all?”

Now that’s a sucker punch.    Steve damned well hadn’t expected the Soldier to be capable of reading him, or even of making an apology come to that.  Something about that cuts him to the core.  This man isn’t Bucky, but he’s a person.  So maybe Steve should make the damned effort to treat him as he’d treat a stranger who’d been tortured, mind-controlled and used as a weapon. 

“I’ll take you,” he says.  “On conditions.  No weapons and the arm stays disabled.  You stay in our sight and you follow my lead.”

“Agreed,” the Soldier says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any one is wondering Rhodey/Maria Hill is not going to be a developed pairing in this story, I just thought they had good chemistry in AoU


	7. All for freedom

“Are you kidding me?” says Sam incredulously.

“Would you rather have him in our sight or following us?” says Steve.  He turns to the Soldier.  “What should we call you?”

“I don’t have a name.”  He’s been walking around two years without a name.  He’s been at Avengers’ HQ for two weeks and Steve has only just got his head out of his backside long enough to care about that.

“We may need to call you something.”

“I’ll answer to Winter Soldier.  Or just Soldier, it’s shorter.”

“OK.”  It’s Wanda who says it.  Steve nods.  It’s not like he has a right to just impose a name on this man. 

Steve sort of has it in his head that the Soldier would silently follow commands, even that he might have transferred his HYDRA obedience to the Avengers, or what remained of them.  This notion lasts less than half an hour, and dies a silent death when Steve starts outlining possible ways to dump the vehicle they’ve taken from HQ and steal another.

“Stealing cars attracts attention,” says the Soldier from the back seat.  “Hiring is better.”

“You have to show ID,” Steve points out. 

“Take me to the nearest railroad station and that won’t be a problem.”

“What’s at the station?” says Sam, in a tone that is trying for neutral but still edged with distrust.

“My kitbag.  I need a change of clothes anyway. ”

Steve retrieves the canvas holdall and he and Sam go through the contents, the Soldier agreeing in the same tone he’d agreed to have his arm deactivated.  There are some weapons, which they divide between the two of them, spare clothes, a tablet which is password locked (Steve decides asking for the password might be a step too far) two sets of false ID and a paperback book: _Operation Paperclip_.  Steve swallows.  He’s read that one.  He hands over the bag, minus weapons. 

Steve and Sam go into a rest room with the Soldier, Sam spots a ‘Cleaning in Progress’ sign and puts it up, while the Soldier changes out of the overalls they’d given him which are basically SHIELD issue with the labels removed.  Steve has seen photographs of the scarred seam where the Soldier’s metal arm joins Bucky’s body, but it’s not the same as seeing it in reality and he must have made a sound, because the Soldier looks at him, eyes hooded and unreadable.  Was Bucky still in there when they did that?  Was he awake?  That’s something the file hasn’t answered, and for a moment Steve thinks he’s going to throw up. 

The Soldier makes use of a cubicle, giving Steve and Sam a look that visibly translates to ‘Are you going to follow me in here?’  When he comes out his arm is no longer in the sling, he hands the cloth that made the sling up to Steve with a stare that challenges Steve to make something of it.  Had Steve really thought his face inexpressive?

“We agreed the arm stayed disabled.”

“They won’t rent me a car if my arm’s in a sling.”

“Wait,” Sam says.  “You could have reactivated it any time?”

“It’s **my** arm.  There wasn’t any point when you’d have just disabled it again.”

“Why do I feel we are losing control of this situation?” Sam mutters to Steve.

“Just so you know,” says the Soldier evenly.  “I have enhanced hearing as well.”

Afterwards Sam goes into the rental agency with the Soldier.  Steve leans against a wall with Wanda, and works on looking inconspicuous.  Through the earpiece he can hear the Soldier talking amiably with the rental woman, sounding … normal.

“I don’t sense any deception in him,” Wanda says.  Steve doesn’t answer.  “But I do sense fear in you.”  Steve looks her way, and she says, “Sorry.”

“I don’t want to sound paranoid,” Sam says, at the wheel of the rental a few minutes later.  “But you seemed a good deal more switched on in there than you’ve been acting at HQ.”

 Steve hasn’t said anything, because it’s not like he’s seen the Soldier since they brought him in, but he remembers what Hill had said about the debriefing sessions.  “It’s like the lights are on, but there’s nobody home.”  Well, there’s somebody home now.

“This is a mission,” the Soldier says.

~~~

“This is a mission,” he tells Wilson, and it’s not a lie.  He’d always been able to act just human enough for casual contacts.  Not all missions involved all guns blazing, he had always been able to blend in when he had to.  A guy in a diner, a delivery man, a casual stranger at a bar. 

But he had become more since then.  It had begun in his first weeks of running, watching people to improve his skills.  Then watching to see what it was to be human, finally watching because just the observation, the details of other lives, was fascinating.  People fascinated.  Along the way he had stopped just saying the bare minimum, started inventing, enjoying the stories he told.  Taking pleasure in the act, as the Asset his knowledge had been too limited for invention, taking pleasure in the interest strangers took in non-existent lives.  He wasn’t like them, but it was good to play at it. 

At SHIELD – he keeps thinking of the place they’d been keeping him since his capture as SHIELD whatever name was on the gate – that hadn’t been an option.  They’d known exactly what he was, all he could do was retreat behind his walls.  Hide the most human parts away, before they used them against him, because however hard he tried to tell himself it was right to co-operate the fear was too deep implanted.

There had been fear on the run as well, but of a different sort.  A living fear, not a choking despair.  He winds the window down slightly, breaths in the air, watches.  The world, now he can live in it, is such a fascinating place. 

He prompts a stop at a mall.  It had dawned on him some time ago that none of these three really know how to vanish.  The Widow would have known, but she isn’t here, which means it’s down to him.  There’s a surge of something within him, energy and satisfaction at being able to act and not be acted on.

(Bucky Barnes, it comes to him, had realised something similar outside a burning factory in Austria, as he looked at the man with Steve’s eyes and voice and general lack of self-preservation, and saw that man really didn’t have a clue how to organise several hundred newly liberated prisoners into marching thirty miles through enemy territory, and in fact was currently rather more scared of the men looking to him for leadership than of HYDRA.)

“Just so you know,” says Wilson, who has again been deputed as the one to accompany him, “If you hurt Steve I will kill you.

He doesn’t fear Wilson, but he respects the courage in making the threat.  And a threat is something you make to a human.  Why threaten a gun?

“Message received,” he says.  “Now we have shopping to do.”

He likes malls.  Most of the goods flaunted don’t interest him, but they are good places to get lost in a crowd, soak up the bustle and purpose.  If you can find a seat it’s possible to sit with a phone or tablet as a camouflage for hours.  That’s an indulgence there isn’t time for now. 

“And the idea behind this is?” Wilson says a little later, dubiously looking at the Soldier’s purchases.  Four purple sweatshirts and olive baseball caps.

“Four is at least one too many to fade into the background, so we need to fool people into thinking they know what we are and it’s something ordinary, unthreatening and a little bit dumb.  Matching outfits we’ll look like some sort of club or society on a sightseeing tour.  It would help if you take a lot of selfies.”  He’s bought cheap phones as well. 

“Man,” Wilson complains.  “This had better not being in the interests of making us look stupid when the Government catches up to us.”  It takes the Soldier several seconds to realise that Wilson is attempting to make a joke.  With him, not at him.  Wilson still doesn’t trust him, he knows, but he’s … trying something. 

During the rest of the day Rogers and Wilson discuss increasingly ridiculous ideas for what kind of touring club they are.  Wanda just listens, so does he.  The road spins out beneath them, ribbon like.  He watches, taking every moment a snap shot, whether it’s a stray dog barking or a couple embracing or just a tree’s branches stirring in the breeze.

They eat in a cheap roadside diner, the place is packed out, nobody gives them a second glance.  The Soldier watches the place for threats, but he watches for himself as well.  The tired looking man shovelling down food as if it doesn’t taste, the woman reading her phone, the young men, little more than boys, joking with each other. 

Wilson shoves a menu at him and he tenses.

He has preferences.  He can choose just fine when he’s eating alone.  But choosing in front of people, that’s dangerous.  Any preference, any show of liking, that’s something that can be used.  He’s furious with himself and with HYDRA, but he can’t bring himself to choose anything he wants. 

Pick something bland.  Nobody can use that.

Finally, with enough random space put between themselves and the HQ, Wilson finds a motel, and the Soldier takes charge of booking in.  He makes sure to smile, and act brightly enthusiastic, though the desk clerk seems board and uninterested.  They hold a strategy meeting, or rather the other three do. 

“It all hinges on the vibranium,” Rogers says.  “If we can trace that trail we can find which head is behind the thefts.  And the only way I can think of is to get to Africa.”

“You don’t lack ambition, do you?” Wilson says.  The Soldier thinks of a younger Rogers, taking on the might of HYDRA, and thinks he never did. 

Rogers gets his way.  Of course he does.   “Can you get us to Nigeria?” he asks.

“Yes,” says the Soldier.  And feels more than a little pleased with himself to be able to say it.

Wanda takes one room.  In the other Rogers and Wilson take the beds, although they look a little uncomfortable when the Soldier settles on the floor in front of the door, so he moves to another wall even though he feels less safe.  It’s no hardship, he had slept like that for months when he was first on the run, and after his time in custody he thinks he’ll sleep easier that way than on a bed, especially as he doesn’t have a knife to grasp.  He runs through his usual exercises first, ignoring Wilson and Rogers as he had ignored countless HYDRA goons in the past. 

 He debates taking out the tablet they’ve restored, cheap though it is the place has a wi-fi link and he has already memorised it.  He could research the latest on the Accords.  He knows though he wouldn’t stick to that, he knows the near addiction that will cut in as soon as he takes it out.  It would be stupid to risk exposing so much to Rogers and Wilson, even if they are briefly his allies  He leaves the tablet in its case, and takes the cards out instead, laying out solitaire on the dingy floor, shutting out the talk of the other two men, even though it doesn’t seem like it’s private.  They seem to be arguing about a movie he has never heard of.

He’s seen all the cards already, so he is unprepared to find himself barely able to look away again from one.  He must have seen this before, when he was building his card houses.  But now he really sees it, and the light of it, even in a reproduction, is mesmerising.  It’s a port scene, tall sailing ships against moonlight, glowing fires to one side.  It’s glorious, the fierce burning that speaks of industry in harmony with the calm of the moon.  And it’s a memory, not harsh in its falling for once. A memory that enters almost shyly, after he’s been drinking in the light on the small piece of card for a while already. 

_“How did he do that, Steve?  How did he get the light that way?”_

_“So it’s Turner that gets to you, Buck?  I wouldn’t have picked that.”_

There had been just enough of the New York docks in the picture that the scene was familiar, not historic and far away back then.  The man that had this body had stared at the picture in awe in the past, and the Soldier is staring at it now.  So that’s a link.  A thing they share.

 He doesn’t sleep well, but he doesn’t expect to.  He’s awake, trying to clear a dream of ice from his head when he hears Rogers talking.  “No!”  It’s a sharp gasp.  “I’m sorry.”  He’s not awake, the Soldier realises. 

Rogers had had nightmares before.  The Soldier remembers Bucky Barnes in a tent in some freezing part of Europe, Steve confessing at last it was his first kill that was haunting him _.  “I pushed him backwards over a rail, thirty feet up.  Can’t see his face, but I can still hear the noise when he hit the floor.”_

He waits, hoping Wilson will wake, but it doesn’t happen and Rogers falls silent so perhaps the dream has passed.  The Soldier leans his head against the unforgiving wall, and tries counting sheep.  He can’t remember why that is supposed to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Turner painting mentioned in this chapter is 'Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight', http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.1225.html


	8. Things we'll never see again

The Soldier takes them to a small air freight company.  He outlines what he knows about it briskly.  The owners aren’t actively allied to HYDRA, but will take anyone’s money, no questions asked.   No, he can’t guarantee they won’t have been leaned on, but isn’t any kind of overseas transport a risk?

“Satisfy my curiosity,” says Sam.  “You’ve been all over the world.  Did you really manage that without ever going through a metal detector?”

“There’s something in the arm that fools metal detectors,” the Soldier says.  “Don’t ask me how it works.” 

“Stark would probably kill to take a look at that,” says Sam, then seems to catch up with his own comment.  “OK, not tactful.”  Maybe accurate though, Steve thinks.

“I’m sure looking at it over my dead body would be fine with Stark,” the Soldier says, and Steve blinks, wondering if that was a deadpan joke and deciding probably not.  To Steve’s relief the Soldier advises them to ditch the matching outfits before they reach the airfield. 

The actual flight goes fine, apart from the fact Steve really does not like flying, and hates the fact he doesn’t like it, after all he’d crashed the Valkyrie on purpose.  It’s controllable, he’s never had a panic attack, he just tenses up.  He’s never told anyone, but Sam has picked it up somehow and he’s pretty sure Natasha had too. 

He misses Nat.  Ridiculous, it’s only been a few days and it’s not like they live in each other’s pockets anyway.  But it’s the wedge between them that makes this different, the fact he doesn’t know when or if they will be friends again.  Steve had never been terribly good at making friends, so he clings hard to the ones he has.  

Sam keeps up a stream of light chatter, at one point reciting the entire plotline of Game of Thrones, at another talking about basketball teams.  Steve lets it wash over him, grateful for the effort, guilty when Sam becomes hoarse from talking. 

Wanda and the Soldier appear to be playing snap.  Steve worries.  He doesn’t think the Soldier may be taking advantage, not exactly, Wanda these days is practically impossible to deceive.  But he worries she may be putting too much of herself into hoping for a connection.  Steve had tried with Wanda, they’d all tried, but she’d still acted like a guest who was always expecting to be shown the door. 

Wanda goes to sleep first, and Steve claims to be sleepy to give Sam a break. 

Bucky had used to do what Sam did today sometimes, talk away about nothing in particular, usually after Steve had wound himself into a useless frenzy of anger and frustration, or after his mother died when he’d just stared at the wall sometimes and hoped the guilt would choke him. 

Bucky had been a lot quieter in Europe.  Sometimes Steve had caught him just staring.  He would come back if he had to, if he was needed, it was never a problem in the field.  Steve had wished he could chatter away, the way Bucky had for him, but it wasn’t in him, never had been. 

He tenses, as the Soldier gets up and comes across to him, then rebukes himself for tensing as the man simply holds out the card pack, a silent offer.  Steve shakes his head, and the Soldier goes back to laying out solitaire, as he had the night before. 

Steve knows he won’t be able to sleep, but he needs less sleep than regular people.  He wonders if the Soldier does too.  It occurs to him then that for the first time he has a chance to talk to someone else with the serum, and chance to compare experiences on things like being able to run a mile in a minute, but getting hungry way too fast.  A chance to ask if the other has ever demolished door knobs accidentally, if he ever feels he’s in a world of people made from tissue.  Thor had understood the last one, at least. 

He can’t.  He can’t do it when the Soldier has Bucky’s face. 

Steve doesn’t sleep, but he drifts for a while.  His mind spins back to nights with Bucky, in Brooklyn; then when Steve shies away, jumps to Pattie, the USO girl who’d been so taken with his new body.  Who Steve had left purple bruises on, quite without meaning to, he just wasn’t used to this body yet.  He’d been utterly horrified, even though Pattie had insisted it didn’t matter, that she liked ‘powerful’ men.  The worry he might inadvertently hurt had never quite left him, even in his one and only kiss with Peggy.  It had been sunshine and fireworks, but he’d still been aware of how fragile her bones were. 

He hadn’t lied when he’d told Natasha he’d been kissed in this century.  In fact he’d gone through a spell of letting himself be picked up in bars, but it hadn’t been much fun.  He’d been still afraid of hurting, afraid too he’d get recognised as Captain America.  So he’d stopped.  Why use try to sex as a release, when it only made him more tense in the end?

He wonders what it would be like, with a body as strong and hardened as his own.  A true match.  He shuts the speculation down hard, and shakes himself awake, passing the time by recalling all the intelligence he’s ever received about the vibranium trail instead, trying to shut out the Soldier still laying out his solitaire. But constantly aware of him all the same.

When the plane lurches and one of the cards flutters towards Steve he grabs and returns it, receiving a nod of thanks from the Soldier, but not before he’d glanced at the front.

It’s an Escher print.  Steve had discovered Escher a couple of years ago, and been struck enough to buy a notebook with this as a cover.  It’s a building full of staircases that meet at impossible angles, of planes that tilt crazily, of featureless figures climbing and descending senselessly.  “A bit depressing, isn’t it?”  Hill had said, and Steve hadn’t even thought of it that way, had only been struck by the technical virtuosity, but he’d seen it then.  A chronicle of impossible pointlessness.  A never ending cycle. 

One of the good things about a photographic memory is allowing him to run pictures through his mind almost like a slideshow.  He starts with Escher, and works back through the paintings he has seen since the ice,  back to the ones shown to him in a underground bunker in England, the ones unloaded from the back of a German truck in an Italian field, the ones so long ago, before he became a science experiment.  He holds the memory of the glowing Turner that had so riveted Bucky in his mind for a long time. 

~~~

The plane comes in to land at a small airfield near Marseille, and they once again get rooms for the night with the aid of the Soldier’s papers and credit card.  The Soldier sleeps on the floor again, after running through his exercise routine.  It makes Steve uncomfortable, as if they are treating him like a guard dog, but when he tries to voice this, the Soldier just says “Be sensible.  I don’t want a bed.  I’ve slept like this when I was the only person in the room often enough.” 

Steve lies awake for a while, worrying over the chances of them being followed, it’s all going well enough to make him doubtful, trusting to luck had in his experience never been the best idea.  But there’s nothing he can do except keep going.

They take short train trips, working towards the Italian border.  No matching sweatshirts this time, but a lot of photograph taking.  “Just look as American as possible,” the Soldier says.

“I’m insulted,” says Wanda.

“I only said **look** American.”

“You can be our sophisticated European Tour guide,” Sam suggests.  Wanda gives him a half smile.

It’s near Cannes that trouble arrives in form of an enthusiastic small girl who recognises Captain America on sight.  Her whole family are so completely overwhelmed that Steve doesn’t even get any chance to protest he isn’t Captain America before they’re all taking selfies with him.

“Damn,” says Sam, when they finally leave him.  “That’ll be all over social media already.”

They have two choices:  run or hide.  Try to get out of the built-up areas before pursuit can home in, or go to ground and hope the pursuit assumes they’ve run.  Steve decides the first.  A couple of street away there is a boarded up shop and they break in round the back.  They wait until dark, silent and tense, then head for the edge of the city.

“I’ve been here before,” Steve tells the others.  “Decades ago, but enough of the main landmarks are still here I believe I can get us to the freight line.”  He hopes.  If not too much has changed.

They’ve reached an industrial estate when Iron Man and War Machine swoop out of the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Escher print is 'Relativity' and can be seen here: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.54256.html


	9. To the right, to the left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has commented and left kudos! It's great to know people are liking this

The Soldier hears them coming at the same time Rogers does.  It’s enough for a warning but there’s no real cover here.  They were in a narrow road, no side alleys.  One way or another probably everyone in the group could make it onto a roof, but that won’t help them against opponents who can fly.  The two suited men aren’t advancing for the moment though they have to know they are in command, the fugitives pressed against a corrugated iron wall for the little shelter it gives. 

Stark surprises him by pushing his helmet back.  “Nobody wants a fight here,” he says in reasonable tones.  “Cap, this isn’t your style.  Give it up, come back with us and we can still sort this.”

“Sort it how?”  Rogers calls.  “Can you get the Accords repealed?  Are you going to help us follow the vibranium trail?”

“Listen to me.  I didn’t support the Accords because I liked the idea.  I supported them because after what happened with Ultron I knew being hell-bent on doing everything my way and rejecting all forms of oversight or differing opinion wasn’t the answer.  That’s what I’m asking you to do now.  Not to agree with everything other people tell you, but to know when to compromise.  When to back down.”

“Backing down was never something I was good at.”

“Listen will you!  Not reporting before, that’s a detail, we can smooth it over.  But if you don’t come back now you will be making things a whole lot worse, for yourself and anyone with you.”

The metallic plates in the Soldier’s arm whirr as he clenches his fist.  The Government will go easy on Rogers, and maybe Wilson.  But Wanda isn’t a US citizen, he knows her powers are already regarded with suspicion, and if knowledge of her involvement with Ultron has gone beyond the Avengers it will go much worse for her than it had for Stark.  As for himself …  Being charged with multiple counts of murder might even be the better option.  His arm isn’t all people like Stark would want to experiment on.

“Tony,” Rogers calls back.  “I know you mean well, but this isn’t something I can walk away from.  Don’t you see, even the chance HYDRA might be behind this is too big a risk to take.  I will not hand my conscience to others again.  I can’t.”

“I really don’t think you’ve thought…” and Stark must have given some kind of signal, because in the same moment he and War Machine attack.

Rogers is already confronting Iron Man, so the Soldier goes for War Machine.   He rolls away from a grappling line. Uses speed to double round.  Rogers and Wilson hadn’t trusted him with weapons, but bullets wouldn’t have worked on the suit anyway.  Out of the corner of his eye he glimpses Wilson emptying a handgun towards Iron Man, but that has to be simply a distraction.  An energy blast comes from one of War Machine’s gloves, but enhanced reflexes let him dodge that as well.  The narrow space means the two metal men can’t use their flying abilities well, but it will also be limiting Wilson. 

A blast of red light makes him blink, War Machine is pushed sideways by it, but recovers quickly rounding on Wanda, another energy blast is dissipated by red threads coming from her hands, but War Machine’s other hand comes up, seeing it the Soldier launches himself towards War Machine and punches the metal plating at the shoulder joint with the full force of the left arm.  The metal dents but doesn’t break, the dart he was about to fire at Wanda pings harmlessly off the wall and the Soldier hears a voice inside his head say _Keep them busy.  I need a bit of time_. 

No time for a freak out over the fact that someone is in his head.  War Machine throws him off, but he rolls, lunges, dodges out of range again. From the other end of the narrow street he hears a metallic clang and sees that Steve appears to be keeping Iron Man busy with shield throwing. Stark’s probably reluctant to use full force on an old teammate, which will put him at a disadvantage since Steve, knowing there’s little he can do to get past the suit, will not be holding back.  Falcon is airborne, despite the narrow confines he swoops the full length of the street firing, before the wings seize and he crashes down.  Stark Tech – of course Stark would have some kind of off switch built into them.  The Soldier dives, as War Machine fires off another dart at Wilson, he’s not quite quick enough to deflect it with the metal arm, and it hits the shoulder just above where the flesh joins metal.  Tranquilliser.  Not strong enough to take out a supersoldier but it will dull his reflexes. 

War Machine’s hand goes to a pack on his belt.  With the edge taken off his reactions the Soldier almost isn’t quick enough, as a net made of very slender, but surely very strong, metal links explodes outwards.  He throws himself sideways, but it still catches round his feet, pulls tight.  A net.    Like he’s a wild animal.  He knows too much about being treated like something that’s not human.  He can’t let that happen again.  Metal fingers push through concrete as War Machine tries to reel him in, he uses the metal arm to pull back, hard enough to jerk his opponent off balance, kick one leg free and roll to his feet.  Instead of trying to free the other leg he takes a run, jumps up and onto the metal shoulders, braces himself and slams the metal arm against one of the plate joints.

The arm is more than just a prosthetic.  And it obeys more commands from his brain than just movement.  Of course HYDRA never bothered insulating his body from the electric current that courses through the arm.  It **hurts** , but he can not only survive, it barely slows him down.  He hadn’t expected the current to seriously disable the suit, and it doesn’t, no way Stark wouldn’t have anticipated someone might use electricity.  It does rock War Machine briefly though, there’s a momentary whirring which sounds rather like his own arm when it recalibrates, he takes advantage of the distraction to wrench the faceplate back with his left hand, then he points the fingers into spikes, aims-

And sees the face.  The face of a man he’s sat opposite, not under great conditions, granted, but he’d known this wasn’t a bad man.  And he’d been about to drive his metal fingers straight through Rhodes’s eyes.

The frozen moment costs him, and he’s hurled back, against a wall.  He twists as he falls, gains his feet, then a metal shield thuds into War Machine, hard enough to send him staggering.  A Steve Rogers shaped blur follows, hitting War Machine in the back with a running kick, but in the same moment exposing his own back to Iron Man.  An energy blast hits him, and he goes down.

The Soldier doesn’t even stop to think, he can see Steve struggling to sit up so the blast obviously wasn’t calibrated to kill, but he still doesn’t hesitate, launching himself at Iron Man, punching hard at the suit’s neck and reinforcing the punch with an electric charge.  He has the satisfaction that Stark staggers, but it means exposing his own back to War Machine, a burst of gunfire tells him Wilson is doing his best to provide a diversion but-

Red light.  A stronger, fiercer flash than before.  There is a whine as the metal suit beneath him powers down, then topples to the ground under its own weight.  A short distance away the same has happened to the War Machine suit. 

“Wanda?”  Rogers says, struggling to his feet.

“Just needed some time to get a handle on how to take the suits out without frying them both,” Wanda says brightly.

The Soldier’s feet carry him over to Rogers.  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” his voice says angrily.  “You turned your back on Iron Man, you dumb punk.  You didn’t have to do that!  Have you got a goddamn deathwish or something, you idiot?  A shield and a costume doesn’t make you immortal!”

Rogers stares at him, mouth open.  “What?”

“Guys,” says Wilson.  “You can fight later.  We need to move.” 

They leave Iron Man and War Machine still struggling to get out of their metal suits, and run for it.  Rogers leads the way unhesitatingly to the train tracks and it’s only a few minutes before a freight train rattles through.  Wilson use his wings – working again since Wanda incapacitated Stark – to help make the jump, Wanda leaps in a trail of red.  Rogers naturally insists on being last.  The thump of the Soldier’s boots as they land doesn’t fail to bring up a rewind of Bucky Barnes’ boots landing on a train roof in his last minutes as a free man, but he pushes it harshly aside. 

Rogers uses the shield to pry open one of the freight containers, and luck is with them, because it’s empty.  All four land safely inside, the Soldier is tense enough to scan the small space but of course it is empty.

“Everyone OK?”  says Rogers.  There are nods all round, Wanda adding, “Although I may not be able to give you another blast like that for a bit.”

“One did the trick.  Nice move, Wanda.  Now, we should all get some rest.”

The Soldier will take a bet Rogers isn’t planning to include himself in ‘all’, but says nothing.  The others know Rogers better after all.  Anyway he needs a few moments to get himself together now the danger is over.  The bruising will fade within hours, the spasm of terror that he was about to be caged again will leave a longer mark. 

He tunes out Rogers speaking quietly first to Wilson, then to Wanda, but sits up as the man comes over to him.

“You’d better take these,” Rogers says, putting down a handgun and two knives.  “I don’t like guns anyway.”

“So you decide I’m fit to have a weapon because I wasn’t keen on getting dragged off by Stark,” the Soldier snaps, irrationally angry.  Rogers tightens his lips.  “I nearly killed Rhodes.  Nearly stabbed him to the brain because all I was seeing was an enemy and I only know one way to treat enemies.  I only just stopped in time, and you decide this is a good time to hand me a gun!”

“The important part is that you didn’t kill him,” Rogers says.  “I broke a man’s arm in a training session a month after I woke up in this century.”

“Not fatal.”

“Not pleasant.  Though since he turned out to be HYDRA I’m not all that sorry.   Look, if you want us all to stay out of Stark’s hands, just take them.”

No point cutting off his nose to spite his face.  He takes the weapons, turning one of the knives over in some surprise.  It is his, the one he always carried.  How it’s followed him through the years is hard to say, but every time they brought him a selection of knives he took this one.

“This is mine.”

“Yes, I took it from the warehouse.”  And chose to take it with him on the run, when there must have been many other weapons available. 

There’s a pause, and he knows this Rogers isn’t finished.  There’s a tension in the air, a charge that unnerves him. 

“When you yelled at me after the fight,” Rogers say.  “What was that?”

“Echoes.”  The Soldier had known this was coming, what surprises him is that the furious urge to grab Rogers and shake some sense into him is still there.  “I have some echoes from James Barnes.  They came out then, like they did on the helicarrier.”

“Really?   On the helicarrier? … You didn’t seem…”

“Well, not quite like the helicarrier.  There was something there back then, but it made me angry.”  Until… but that memory is still too tangled and agonising, he can’t touch it.  “Echoes,” he said again.  Rogers nods, awkwardly. 

“Get some rest,” he repeats.

Even with his best knife in his hand the Soldier doesn’t go to sleep, but he does manage to rest his mind, sending it to a blank, waiting place that had been usual on missions.  The rattle of the train doesn’t disturb him in the way he thought it might.  He doesn’t remember travelling by train much when HYDRA had him, perhaps they kept him frozen for that kind of transport, or perhaps there was just nothing very memorable about any journeys he might have taken.

James Barnes had taken a long train trip across occupied Europe with the Howling Commandos in a van which held goats.  It’s a new memory, but it’s one that slides into his mind as though it had always been there, rather than slicing like shrapnel.  Not a bad memory either, although there had been a lot of complaints about the goats at the time.  Rogers had vetoed killing any of them for food, although he’d kept staring in a rather hungry way.

Bucky, he remembers, had been trying not to stare at Steve, with a different kind of hunger.  The knowledge has been there for some time, but it’s only since he’s seen Steve again that there’s been real meaning to it.

They’d shared more than cramped apartments.  They’d shared their bodies.  There’d been pleasure given and taken, always tense and taut, because they had to be quiet, the walls were so thin.  They’d shared all there was to share, but they’d never put a name to it.  At least he doesn’t think so.  They’d talked about the girls they’d meet and marry and they’d gone out on dates – him more than Steve, because Steve **always** blew it with girls, even the ones who really liked him.  If he didn’t dump them in the middle of a date to go fight something, he convinced himself the girl didn’t genuinely want to date him and found an excuse to be horribly rude.  Agent Carter was the first one who forgave him for that…

And there was another memory.  In Europe, where Bucky had been all raw edges.  Agent Carter, and damn, but he could see why Steve had fallen so hard.  She’d frightened Bucky – eyes too sharp, too likely to see all the things he was trying to lock away, all the places where Zola’s table had left its mark.  He’d done a poor job of trying to cover it, but Steve hadn’t seen.  This new, large, unnervingly mellow, Steve who had been on top of the world, and Bucky had hated himself because Steve was happy, Steve had everything he wanted, including an amazing woman who didn’t at all mind the occasionally resurfacing bits of angry chip-on-shoulder Steveness.  And Bucky couldn’t just be happy for him, couldn’t keep back a bitter edge.

Bad timing, he’d told himself.  Just bad timing that it was all happening so soon after Zola.  They’d get the damned war over, and he’d dance at Steve’s wedding, and then Steve and Peggy would go on to a proper heroes’ happy ending and Bucky would … well, there’d be something for him.  Not marriage, not now.  That mess Zola had left wasn’t ever going to get cleaned up completely and he wasn’t going to inflict it on anyone else.  But he’d be OK.  There were his sisters, and Steve wasn’t the sort to lose touch completely.  

Better this way.  Better than anything they could have had together.  The hiding and lies would have eaten Steve from the inside out sooner or later, and that would have eaten Bucky away as well.  They just had to get through the war…

The Soldier rolls over and stares through the dark at the roof of the truck.


	10. One headline why believe it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to everyone who has commented or left kudos!

They cross the border into Italy successfully, find another cheap boarding house, the back-packs (Sam’s holds his wings) helping pass them off as tourists.  This is taking too long, but they need to be circuitous for a couple of days after the brush with capture.  All of them are on edge.  Wanda has already berated herself to Steve for not picking up in time that they were about to be attacked, and he suspects she’s pushing herself to the limit, trying to avoid a repeat.  Even the Soldier seems grimmer.  Steve himself is all too aware he’s led them into something that can end painfully badly.   He doesn’t want any more friends to die because of him.

After the train jumps Steve thoroughly expects to have nightmares, but it’s Sam who wakes up screaming.

“Riley!  Riley!”  The screams cause the Soldier to take up a defensive position, gun out, while Wanda bursts in from the next room scarlet trailing from her hands. 

“Sam.  You’re in Italy.”   This had happened a couple of times when they were on their original search for the Soldier, so it’s not unfamiliar to Steve.  “Riley’s gone, Sam.  I’m sorry.”

Sam gasps.  “I’m alright,”

Wanda says something in a low tone to the Soldier, and he puts away the gun and follows her lead back into the narrow hall, leaving Sam and Steve alone. 

“Sorry,” Sam says.

“You’ve told me baggage doesn’t need apologies often enough.”

“Easier to say than to believe, isn’t it.”  Sam rubs a hand across his face.  “I guess it was the wings cutting out yesterday.”

“Why did you choose to go back to flying?”  Steve asks. 

“It was always going to happen.  Flying was what I wanted most, right from a kid.  After my Dad was killed I spent over a year pretending I was a bird every chance I got.”

“Your father was killed?”  It’s the first time Sam has mentioned that.  Steve has met his widowed mother, but never liked to pry into how Sam’s father died.

“Yeah.”  He’s quiet for a while, then just when Steve thinks he’s not going to say anymore Sam goes on.  “He was a minister, coming home late.  Tried to stop a mugging and was stabbed.  Broke us all up for a time.  I suppose I tried to become him, wanted to help people, give to people, as much as he did.  But I knew the church wasn’t for me.  Pararescue seemed spot on, I got to fly and I got to save people. “

“Until you couldn’t save your friend,” Steve says quietly.

“It wasn’t just that.   It was bad, yes, but I’d been losing reasons to stay before that.”  Sam doesn’t elaborate, leaving Steve to wonder about his service.  “It took me away from flying for a time, but I was never going to be able to quit for good.  And when I had a new chance to fly and help folk, there was no holding back.”

Steve remembers those lonely months on the road, remembers Sam’s repeated insistence that he would be out of his league among the Avengers, a view Steve had a hard time talking him out of.  The Steve who weighed ninety-eight pounds would have been offended by the idea he needed help.  The Steve of today thinks meeting Sam was one of the luckiest breaks of a very strange life. 

~~~

The next morning Sam talks a little bit too determinedly calmly while trying to find an English language news channel on the TV in their room (this is one of the things that still occasionally make Steve shake his head in amazement at the future even a cheap room like this one has a television).  He’s not really paying much attention to Sam’s channel hopping until Sam starts cursing.

Maybe it was Stark, maybe it wasn’t but someone has leaked Wanda’s history, including her recruitment by HYDRA and involvement in the Durban disaster, while leaving out the fact that HYDRA had recruited her under false pretences using the name SHIELD and lying about almost every aspect of their intentions.  The screen holds a Congressman denouncing Wanda as a probably psychotic enemy alien, asking how she could ever have been admitted to the Avengers, and making insinuations that nothing short of mind control can explain Captain America and the Falcon choosing to side with her and deny US democracy. 

The four of them gather around the set to listen, quiet and tense.  The Soldier mutters what sounds like curses in a language Steve doesn’t recognise, then gets his tablet out and starts checking the web for more details of what has leaked. 

“They are quoting from HYDRA records,” he says.  “Strucker was a typical HYDRAcrat, documented everything.  No proof on Durban, though, just assertions.”

“So it was an inside leak,” Steve says bitterly.  He thinks of Natasha, and hopes he’s wrong.  “There won’t be any evidence on Durban anyway, but all Strucker’s files were with the Avengers or with Stark.”  Tony had kept some of the science records to investigate. 

“It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence,” says Wanda.  She’s pale, but sitting straight, hands balled.

“No,” Sam agrees, “the press will run with it anyway.”  

“That is not what I meant.”

The latest talking head is accusing Steve and Sam as co-conspirators, and suggesting Steve might not be the real Captain America who crashed a plane in 1945 but an imposter.  It’s not new, the idea was raised after the SHIELD takedown with some denouncing Steve’s actions as a betrayal of National security.

“Makes a change from claiming we’re mindcontrolled, I guess,” says Sam.  It’s not much of a joke.

Wanda stands.  “This is not acceptable. They are using me to make your position weaker, destroy sympathy for your stand.  It would be better if I surrendered myself.”

Sam’s exclamation of “No, Wanda!” crosses with Steve.

“That’s not the answer.  We need you.”

“Stark will have figured out how to stop me disabling his suits by now,” Wanda says.  “For the rest I’m a liability.  If I give myself up they will not be able to claim I am mindcontrolling you.  And I believe after this I will be hunted a lot more fiercely than you will.”

She was right, on the last at least.  Steve doubts that extradition attempts under the Accords would hold up, but there would likely be warrants out on Wanda for the deaths in Durban by now.

“I am not innocent,” Wanda says, very steady.  “Perhaps I have dodged justice long enough.”

“Listen to me,” and Steve is amazed to realise it’s the Soldier speaking.  “They would not give you justice.  They will not treat you as human.  They will take you apart, piece by agonising piece, and then try to stitch you together in a different shape.  Nobody should have that done to them.  Whatever you think you deserve, you should fight that with all you have, run from it if you can.  Don’t give yourself up to them Wanda.  You might as well give us up as well, do you think anyone here could just go on with our journey, knowing you’re in their hands?  We’d probably all get caught on some reckless rescue mission.  They’d expect us to try one because anyone who knows anything about Steve would know he’d come for you.  You stay free.  You hear me?”

“I got to say, he’s right,” Sam adds after a short pause in which they all stare at the Soldier with varying degrees of surprise.  “And take it from experience, doing the thing you really don’t want to isn’t always the right choice.”

“We need you,” Steve says.  “Not just for the fights.  I don’t want to lose another friend.”

Slowly Wanda sits back down.  “OK,” she says and gives a rather shaky smile.  “OK.  Just don’t do anything stupid to protect me.”

Sam snorts, “This is Steve Rogers.  In what world does he ever listen to people telling him not to do something stupid?”

Steve would have missed it without enhanced hearing, but he’s sure he hears the Soldier give a very quiet echoing snort.

Sam, recovering his position as the group’s voice of good sense (Steve has a better appreciation now of how tough that role is than he had when Bucky tried to do it for him an age ago), finally insists they switch the TV off.  Then he goes downstairs and pays for another day’s lodgings, there is more than one reason why it wouldn’t be the best idea to try and move today.  They stay indoors, talking quietly, as if loud voices might somehow make things worse.  The Soldier sits on the floor with Wanda, laying out cards face down in a clock shape.

“I can’t believe you’re showing Wanda that,” Steve says, trying for a light tone.  “Be prepared for failure, Wanda.  It never comes out right.”  There’s a bleak joke in there about life, but he leaves it unmade.

He remembers playing on the floor when he was small.  He remembers a dirty pack of cards in a billet somewhere in France.  He looks at the man sitting next to Wanda, hair, still raggedly cut but clean, falling forward.  He tries to contain his hope, because hope is dangerous.

There had been so much unsaid.  So much Steve hadn’t even put together until one night, deep in the mountains.  Bucky had had the watch, but Steve didn’t need so much sleep with the serum and he’d been keyed up knowing they had a real crack at Zola, the man he’d wanted under arrest so badly.  He’d left his tent in the night and gone to stand beside Bucky.  Neither of them had spoken but the silence hadn’t been uncomfortable.  They didn’t need to talk. 

Steve had taken out his compass, and used the weak moonlight to pick out Peggy’s newsprint features.  He hadn’t even known Bucky had seen him do it, until Bucky had said, oddly conversational, “When are you going to ask her dancing, Steve?”

“When the war is over,” Steve had answered.  That was how Peggy wanted things, wasn’t it?

“Steve, you’re acting like you did when you were crushing on Hedy Lamarr, mooning over a picture cut out a paper.  Agent Carter’s not on a silver screen, she’s right there, she’d say yes in a flash if you asked her out, what’s the point in waiting?  A dame like that’s not going to be short of offers, you wait too long she’ll think you aren’t interested.”  It came out in a rush of words.

“You really think she’d say yes?”  Bucky spoke as if it was certain, but Peggy wasn’t like Private Lorraine, and the other women who saw only a famous name and a set of muscles.   Steve wasn’t brilliant or dashing like Howard, he didn’t belong to her social circle the way Monty did.  He was a kid from back alleys with an artificial body.  He’d thought he’d heard an invitation when she talked of dancing, but what if he was wrong?  The thought twisted him up. 

“Did that serum ruin your eyesight or what?  Just ask her, Steve.”

Just ask.  Just ask.  What’s the worst that can happen?  Bucky had said that with Gracie Conner.  She had said yes, then Steve had blown it two dates later getting into a fight with her brother Billy.  He couldn’t remember what it had been about now. 

“And if she says yes?”  He hadn’t meant to say that out loud but it slipped out.

“Then I get to be your best man and make a speech full of embarrassing stories,” Bucky said glibly.

“That’s moving a bit fast, isn’t it?”

“Steve,” Bucky said.  “Don’t you want to marry her?”

Of course he did.  Of course.  Peggy was amazing, she was a woman in a thousand.  Steve would be the luckiest man alive if she said yes.  If he could get some kind of job back in New York after the war that paid well enough, get a nice place to live.  Bucky would find a girl of his own no doubt, hopefully Peggy would like her and they’d all stay close. 

That was what he ought to want.  Wasn’t it.  But now picturing it with Bucky a bare arm’s length away, Steve found his throat closing up at what wasn’t, couldn’t be, part of that picture.  Of what he’d be giving up, in a New York where Bucky wasn’t the first person he saw in the mornings (and Bucky was grumpy as hell in the mornings, but it was a grumpy Steve was used to) and the last person he said goodnight to.  Where there wouldn’t be shared jokes between them in the evenings, arguments over what movie they should see, what books they should buy with their meagre shared cash.  Where there wouldn’t be those hidden, shiveringly beautiful touches of each others’ skin.

“Buck,” he said, very quiet.  “What about … what we had.”  And heard Bucky’s breath catch, heard the judder in his voice when he finally answered.

“Steve.  There’s no future there.  Nothing but hiding and lies.  You don’t want that.”

Steve thought: Don’t tell me what I want.  He said, “What do you want, Buck?”

“Don’t, Steve,” Bucky said, he too was very quiet.  “That time.  It’s gone.  Captain America’s not going to go back to a dump in Brooklyn.  They won’t let you.  You’ve got a chance for something great with Agent Carter.”

And he had.  He knew it.  But….

“You think she’d come to New York?” his voice said doubtfully.  But Peggy had already talked to him about New York, and the chances of a job for her in the SSR office when the war was over.  She’d sounded keen.

There was been a pause, before Bucky said, “I think she’ll want to be with you.”

And Steve, muddled in his head, left it there.  Went back to his tent, and just laid on his back.  Playing it all over in his head.  What he’d had with Bucky, against what he might have with Peggy.  He’d gone on doing it, in quiet moments, for much of the next day.  And somewhere the next night things had fallen into place.

Life with Peggy was a dream.  It was everything he was supposed to want.  Peggy was a dream.  She was extraordinary, everything a noble knight could wish for in a lady, and the way she threw a punch was a thing of beauty.  He would crawl over broken glass for Peggy, but how well did he really know her?  They’d hardly had any decent conversations, she’d even told him he didn’t know how to talk to her properly.  Maybe the dream would stay as bright if he got to know her better, or maybe it wouldn’t.  He’d have given a great deal to find out, if it hadn’t been for Bucky, he thought, and then realised that was nonsense because there could be no picturing a life that had never had Bucky in it. 

Bucky wasn’t just real life, he **was** Steve’s life, and Steve giving Bucky up would be splitting himself clean down the middle.  If he could do it at all, he wasn’t sure there’d be enough left that was worth Peggy’s, or anybody’s, while.

He’d been a fool, and he hoped like hell Bucky was wrong about Peggy wanting him, because he’d never wanted to hurt her. 

He’d need to talk to Bucky first.  Not here, not halfway up a mountain surrounded by snow.  He’d talk to Bucky when the mission was done and if Bucky would take him, if he’d take a chance, then they’d work something out.  Not back in Brooklyn, Bucky was right there, the glare of the spotlight would follow Steve now.  But he could give up Brooklyn, if Bucky would… If. 

And Steve still couldn’t see why Bucky would, for him, but he could hear Bucky saying ‘til the end of the line,’ on dusty steps in Brooklyn, screaming ‘Not without you’ across a fiery chasm, see his eyes as he said, ‘I’m following him.’  So many promises, and Steve had never said any of them back.  But he would.  He would. 

He never had.  Not until there was a burning collapsing helicarrier beneath them and around them, and Steve had expected those words to be the last he ever said, and he hadn’t cared.  The end of the line had come, and this time they would fall together.

Except he’d woken up.  Again.

~~~

Steve dreams that night.  In the dream he’s small again.  He often is in dreams.  In the dream they are running, just as they are now, dodging through featureless street, trying to catch a train that at a vast echoing station.  In the dream Sam and Wanda are there, but so is Natasha, and so is Bucky, the Bucky of the 40s in his blue Commando coat, with the rifle on his shoulder.  But the Soldier keeps popping up as well, quiet and steady, metal hand ungloved.  Steve keeps trying to introduce Bucky and the Soldier – somehow in his head that’s not bizarre – but he never gets a chance.

The thing is, Steve knows he can be selfish.  He knows this shouldn’t be about his wants.  The man who goes by Soldier has endured more than flesh and bone should be able to take.  What Steve misses, what he wants, is nothing in the face of that.


	11. All the things that we had

They pass by Monte Cassino and the Soldier … remembers.   (He can’t think of a better term even if the memories aren’t his.)  Monte Cassino the ancient abbey in prime defensive position on a hill of rock, where the Germans, regular Wehrmacht not HYDRA, had held up the allies for months, where the Allied Command had finally agreed to the demands of the men on the ground to bomb the abbey to rubble in what proved to be a futile attempt to dislodge the enemy.  Steve, a huge believer in protecting historical and artistic treasures, had been devastated by the order.  He shakes his head, to clear the stab of pain, but the memories aren’t falling as sharply as they had at one time.  The Soldier checks his tablet that night; Wikipedia tells him the abbey has been rebuilt.   He wonders: can you really rebuild that kind of history?  Or is it a perpetual fake.

Further south are memories of a different kind.  He’d been to Naples in the last year, taking down a snake head, sniped the man long range, as he was getting into a car.  At the time there had been no feeling, it was just a job that needed to be done.  Now the memory of his coldness shakes and angers him, but he still knows he could kill again and again if he had to.  If the reason was right.

Before going into the city for the hit he’d stopped at a roadside restaurant.  Didn’t look much from the outside, but he’d logged the number of cars outside and decided any place that popular must be good.  That had been in the days he was discovering taste, so perhaps his mind is exaggerating how good the meal was. 

Not long after the Polish corps had finally raised their flag over the ruins of Monte Cassino, an Italian contact of Agent Carter’s had thrown his wine cellar open to the Commandos.  “The men need some time off, Steve,” Barnes had said quietly when Rogers had been against taking the offer up.  He thinks Barnes had wanted to give Rogers some time off too, Steve couldn’t get drunk of course, but he needed to let his mind rest.  (Barnes hadn’t been able to get drunk either by then, but he’d done a good job of hiding it.)  By the end of the night the Howlies were singing in a medley of languages and Steve was sketching the scene with a pencil stub on the back of a cigarette packet.  He hasn’t seen Rogers draw all the time they’ve been running. 

“I know a place we can eat,” the Soldier says, and is more than a little surprised that Steve, who is driving the hired car, accepts the suggestion without any question.

He wasn’t wrong about the food.  “This,” Wilson says, looking up from his spaghetti with clams, “this is amazing.  This is good enough to make me wish I had a supersoldier appetite.”

They sit out under the vines and eat gelato, and nothing goes wrong at all. 

~~~

“I wanted to atone,” Wanda says that evening, in a small guest house in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, laying cards out while the Soldier runs through his exercises.  Rogers and Wilson have gone out to buy supper. 

“Is that why you joined the Avengers?”

“That, and I had nowhere else to go.  At first I was expecting them to charge me any day, then I figured out they didn’t want to do anything that would make the public even more afraid of powered people.”

“You think that was the only reason?” he says.

“Not for all of them, maybe.”  She’s laying out a form of solitaire he showed her, a bit less vicious than the clock one.  “After Pietro died,” Wanda says, “I thought that was my punishment.  I was the one who took us to SHIELD, to Ultron.   I thought he died because that was worse than if I had.”

“I don’t believe that,” the Soldier says.  “I don’t believe there’s a God or a Fate that would punish Pietro for what you did.  However he died, whether there was a reason or not, it was part of his story.  His.”

“It was the end of his story.”

“I’m sorry,” the Soldier says, because it’s all he can say.  Except, perhaps… “Would you like to tell me about him?”

Wanda stares at a card for a while in silence, then finally she says, “I’ll tell you about Pietro, if you tell me about Bucky’s sisters.”

“They were his, not mine.”

“Tell me anyway,” says Wanda.  “Remember them for him.”

“I will, then.  If you will.”

Wanda talks for a long time.  “We ran away from the orphanage at fourteen.  The other kids all targeted us, most of the staff too, because we are Romani.  It still makes me sick to think we worked for HYDRA.  Our mother’s grandparents died in the camps.  Her father’s brother too, they took him for experiment and he died.  We didn’t know, not until it was too late.  They had implants in us, so we’d die if we tried to run.  I thought of it, many times, but then they would have won.”

“What happened to the implants?” says the Soldier. 

“Ultron got Strucker to take them out before he killed him.”

“Good.  You know that a lot of smart people were fooled by HYDRA,” the Soldier says.

“Doesn’t make me feel any better.  Every choice I made seemed to be wrong, so letting the Avengers choose for a bit felt wise.  But we weren’t supposed to be making this about me.  We were, where had we got to?”

“The orphanage.”

“Right, well, Pietro didn’t have it quite so bad, because children like it if you’re good at sport.  He was really fast at everything, even before we went to SHIELD.  Our parents used to call him … well I think the nearest in English would be Quicksilver.  In the orphanage, he was always trying to protect me.  Then, when we were on our own… we used to joke I was the brains and he was the brawn.  He used to say he had the looks as well.  He… he would have loved this whole superhero thing.  Lapped it up.  Had a dozen social media accounts, and posted pictures on them all.  Been thrilled if he had a fan club.”

He knows there isn’t anything that could comfort her.

Wanda insists he keep his side of the deal, and so, haltingly, he tells her about Bucky Barnes’ family.  Thankfully she doesn’t ask him to describe emotions, but he can tell his voice isn’t quite the expressionless tone he used for mission reports, even if what he recites are mostly facts.

Lizzie, the eldest girl, who’d had polio when she was small.  He thinks some of Bucky’s earliest memories were of that time, of the fear and the hushed voices.  Lizzie had needed a crutch to walk after, and so many kids had given her a hard time for it.  Bucky had had protection built into him before he even started school.  Lizzie had had the best voice of the family, been a soloist in the church choir, always insisted on having a share of chores at home, had a line in dirty jokes that quite beat her brother who had been no slouch himself.  She’d been married early in the war, a lad in the navy, they’d worked out a way to dance at the wedding.

Alice, the proper one, though she’d had a fierce temper.  Very smart, wanted to be a scientist.  So had Bucky, they got books from the library and studied together, kept studying after he’d had to drop out of school and get work.  Alice had been a stunner, always a queue of boys, she’d dated some but never very seriously.

Becca, the baby of the family.  The one always begging to take in another stray, who tried to nurse birds with broken wings, and even once an injured mouse.  Becca who’d had a bit of a crush on Steve Rogers at one time, probably mostly because he got into even more fights than she did.  Their mother had hated Becca fighting, but Bucky had made sure she knew how to throw a punch.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to them?”

He hesitates.  This is big, and it’s hard.  His gut is clenching with a fear beyond reason, but she’s trusted him with her life.  Part of him screams it’s not the same, that there’s nobody left who can be used against Wanda, but in the end it’s a simple question.  If he believes she wouldn’t use this against him, then it’s unfair to hold back, when she’s given him so much.  And the part of him that can think clearly on this does believe it.  If he gives into the fear that’s another win for HYDRA, isn’t it?

He gets his tablet from his backpack.  “I don’t hack them” he tells her.  “Only view the stuff that’s public.”

He’d started early, when he was still trying to work out who James Barnes had been, he’d found a black-and-white photo tagged ‘My great-uncle, the war hero.’  After that there’s been no going back, he thinks he’s probably found all the social media sites belonging to Barnes’ descendants. 

Becca’s still alive.  There’s a picture of ‘My Nan’s birthday,’ from just a few months back.  Rebecca Proctor in front of a big iced cake, surrounded by descendants.  If he looks hard he can fancy the eyes are familiar, otherwise there’s not much of Bucky’s little sister visible in the great-grandmother’s face.   Lizzie had been widowed in her thirties, married again ten years later, become a leading local fundraiser for cancer research.  She’d called her second kid James.  Alice stayed single, never got the career in research she’d hoped for, but she’d taught science for years and ended up a headteacher, so he hopes that had been a good enough second.  He’d found a couple of tributes from former pupils.   

He has the URLs memorised.  Deletes his browsing history after every session, and yet still this is a risk.  It’s an addiction he can’t shake. 

“You say you are not James Barnes,” Wanda says, “and yet…”

“I have echoes.  Left over scraps of Barnes.  I didn’t come with a family.”  He has no better way of putting it.

“Do you have any pictures of Pietro,” he asks, when Wanda doesn’t answer.

Wanda takes out a battered wallet.  There are three snaps inside, two of a young man with shaggy hair; one, crumpled, of two children and two adults.  “We never had many pictures.  We moved around such a lot, it was hard to keep much.  I didn’t like to bring all of them, just picked out a few.”

He wonders if she’s left the others with someone, or hidden them somewhere. 

Wanda tells stories of reckless stunts her brother pulled until her voice is hoarse.  She hadn’t been kidding about being the one with the sense, the Soldier thinks.  It catches him his chest, the thought of what it meant to have a family and lose it all.  He can’t know it, nobody could, who hadn’t lived through such a thing, but the thought of the pain staggers him all the same, the thought of the strength it has taken to go on makes him marvel.  Not just at Wanda.  Steve Rogers had lost everybody he knew.    Wanda had said he was grieving.  No wonder.    He thinks perhaps it was never their collection of skills and powers that made the Avengers remarkable.

~~~

Steve isn’t meaning to eavesdrop, but sometimes enhanced hearing makes it hard not to.  “We went many places looking for work, legally where we could, but it was hard.  The people who apply the rules, many decided we were thieves because we were Romani.  Usually I was a cleaner.  Pietro did all sorts of things.  We learned other languages to get work more easily.”

He steps out of range, guiltily.  It’s not just Wanda who is opening up, though, he realises.  The Soldier is different when talking to her.  It’s subtle, just a little less tension in the shoulders, a little more expression in the voice.  He trusts her more than he trusts Steve or Sam.  It makes Steve feel strangely like a failure.

The next day as they wait for a train, switching around their methods of transport in the hopes of distracting pursuit. Steve takes a chance to speak to the Soldier on the platform. 

“Have you thought what you will do when this is over?”

“When it’s over?  Thinking how to get to Nigeria is taking enough trouble right now.”  His voice is flat, as it usually is when he’s speaking to Steve.

“You can’t want to stay on the run for the rest of your life.”

“Why does want come into it?”

“The Avengers have given fresh starts before.”  It had seemed almost impossible for Steve to say, until he said it. 

“An Avenger?  Don’t see anyone taking well to that.”

“Wanda would,” Steve says, confidently.  “And her word will count, if we can solve this.  And I hope mine will as well.”

“Why?” The Soldier says.  “I mean, why would you?”

“Because none of what they made you do was your fault.   Because I worked for HYDRA, killed for HYDRA, and nobody’s charged me for that, although I wasn’t being mindcontrolled.  Because you deserve the chance to fight for something better, if that’s what you want.  If you don’t want to fight anymore you deserve that too.”

“I’m not him.  Your friend.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Steve says.  He is trying not to hope still.  He knows that’s not fair to the man in front of him, whether he is Bucky, can ever be Bucky, matters less than that he is a person.  “Whoever you are, you don’t have to be what HYDRA tried to make you.”

“There’s a lot of people who won’t agree.  Including Stark.”

“Tony can be stubborn, but he’s not unreasonable.  Well, not usually in the end.”

“Right now I’ll settle for staying out of range,” the Soldier says.  It’s a deliberate blocking of the subject, and Steve can only let it rest.

He adds one thing more first.  “You would have gone for Wanda.  If she had given herself up.”

“I wouldn’t leave a dog to that,” the Soldier says. 

 


	12. Shattered into ash

The Soldier has been chewing over things ever since they turned on the news to find Wanda being hunted.  He thinks there is a strong possibility that what he wants to raise could come out the wrong way, but he thinks he must do it.

It’s only as he is about to open his mouth that he realises the real reason why he had hesitated is that he has become reluctant to bring up who and what he is in this company.   It had become comforting to pretend.  The Asset had never known enough to pretend.

“We must bear in mind,” he says, “that their next step might be to spill my history.  In fact I am quite surprised they didn’t spill mine first.  Especially considering it must be rather personal for Stark.”

“I’d thought about that as well,” Rogers says.  “I can see two reasons.  They may be holding it in reserve, may think they could put pressure on me by threatening to release the information.”

“They think I’m your weak point?  Still?”  Did Stark’s team really still think that Rogers believed him to be Bucky?  The warehouse had made it so obvious to him that wasn’t the case, perhaps he’d overestimated how obvious it was to others. 

“Pretty sure Rhodes still thinks I’m compromised.  The other possibility is they’re concerned about retaliation.  Not everything about how deeply HYDRA was embedded in SHIELD ended up on the web.”

“Would Stark care about SHIELD?” said Wanda.

“Not SHIELD itself, no.”  He looks the Soldier in the eye.  “Do you know who made your arm?”

So he’s put it together.  “Zola made sure of it.  Barnes still had some of his memories then.   Of course I didn’t rely just on Zola.  I’ve checked it out since, as much as I could.”

“Care to fill the rest of us in?” says Wilson.

Rogers does.

“Howard Stark was a brilliant engineer.  Maria Stark was a biologist specialising in neuroscience.  They worked on creating bionic limbs for amputees at one time, but were never able to produce a product that could be marketed.”

“Too heavy for a regular human frame,” the Soldier says.  It costs him, to keep his voice matter of fact.  “And the brain surgery would probably kill anyone without serum.”  They all look at him, and he shrugs with his right shoulder.  “The doctors used to discuss possibilities in front of me.  I never saw Stark in person, though, and I’ve no reason to think he knew Zola never stopped being HYDRA.”

“He knew about Project X,” Rogers says heavily.  “I’ve seen the records – paper files, they never went on line.  As far as I can tell he didn’t know who the subject was, he thought one of the experiments SHIELD did on Death Row volunteers had succeeded physically, but damaged the subject’s mind.   He knew SHIELD controlled the Winter Soldier.”

“I thought…” Wilson starts, and then stops.  “That file came from Kiev.”

“It was a Ukrainian HYDRA cell found Barnes first,” the Soldier says.  He’s been back to Kiev since.  “But they didn’t get very far.  Didn’t have brainwashing techniques, couldn’t replicate the serum.  So when Zola got recruited by SHIELD they shipped Barnes back east.  SHIELD had me in Europe mostly.  The red star was put on for a mission that was set up to look like a Soviet kill.  They left it there after.  Good misdirection.”  He’s left the star as well.  Blood red is appropriate. 

“Then why did HYDRA kill the Starks?” Wilson says. 

“Howard Stark had become too erratic,” the Soldier answers.  He has to pause, and take a deep breath.  “Obadiah Stane was corporate HYDRA.  Maria Stark was …. collateral.”   He knows exactly how brutal that word is.  “Brilliant scientist, no interest in anything outside the lab.”  Another deep breath.  “She was killed outright in the crash.  Stark lived for a few minutes.  I went down to check.”

“Did he recognise you?” Rogers looks as though he wishes he could bite the words back.

“Not as Barnes.  He saw the arm, and knew I was his work.”  There’s no need to tell them the man’s last desperate words.  _Why would SHIELD do this?  I made everything they wanted._   “It had been a long time since he last saw Barnes.  Anyway, the brass, like Stark, they didn’t mix much with the men on the ground.”  He realises his mistake as soon as he has said it. 

“Does Stark the younger know what his parents did?” Wanda asks grimly.

“Yes, he knows,” says Rogers.  “But.  Tony’s not very rational on the subject.”

“Because, rather than in spite of, not liking his parents much when they were alive.  As far as I can figure,” Wilson adds.

“But he wouldn’t want it public,” the Soldier finishes.  “Makes sense.”  There’s something else.  “I’m sorry, Rogers.  I know he was your friend.”

“Howard?”

“Who else?”

“HYDRA would have found some way to get to him no matter what.  It wasn’t your fault.  And I don’t think the man he was by then is the one that I knew.”

That’s not the point, the Soldier thinks.  The point is that it hadn’t mattered what kind of people the Starks were.  And that though it was no doubt true somebody else could have done it, it had been him.

It’s always a surprise to look at his hands and see no stains. 

~~~

Rogers corners him later.

“You remember the war.”

“If you can call it remembering.”

“What else?”  The look is so painful, so hopeful, the Soldier has to look away.

“I remember a fair bit.  Not everything.  I know Janey Moritz was your first kiss.  I know we stole medicine from Old Man Johnson’s shop when your Ma was sick.  I know it was Aggie O’Brian broke your nose when you stuck it into a quarrel she was having with her boyfriend – you didn’t know Bucky knew that, did you?  I know it’s garbage that Captain America never used a gun, though how you managed to be such a lousy shot when you could throw a knife as well as me is a mystery.  I know all that.  That doesn’t make me your Bucky.”

“Why not?” Rogers demanded heatedly, and oh, why now, why now, when things had reached a reasonable accommodation, when the Soldier had believed that Rogers wasn’t going to push it.   Why now?

“Because I remember enough to know he wouldn’t have done the things I did!” the Soldier snaps.

“Would you do them now?” Rogers demands.  “Now, when you get to say no, would you do it?”

“I could have said no then.  I didn’t want to.”

“Because they _made_ you not want to.  They used machines.  I’ve seen the files.”

“Don’t you tell me what they did!  I lived it! They _made_ me with those machines.  They murdered him, your friend Bucky, and they put me in instead.”  He can see Roger’s face take in a greenish shade, but he presses on anyway.  “Their attack dog.  That’s what I’ve come from, that’s the core of me.  Yeah, I’m choosing who I go for now, I’m turning the attack on them.  I’m still what they made me.  He wasn’t.  He wasn’t made by them.”

Rogers’ breathing is so harsh and fast for a moment the Soldier is worried.  But he says, steadily enough, “OK.  OK, you say you’re not him.  You should know.  But you are not what they made you.  You are not.”

“That’s …”  He hasn’t words for how much he wants it to be true.  “That’s kind of you.”

“I haven’t been very kind.  All I could see when I looked at you was what they did to Bucky.  I could have treated you better.”

“You didn’t leave me locked up for Stark.  That was brave.  You could have.  I wouldn’t have blamed you.”  His own breathing is harsh and fierce now, remembering the misery of those days in the Avengers’ facility.  “You were right not to be kind.  I can’t say I wouldn’t have grabbed an opening, pretended to be him for you, if I thought it would give me an out.  Let me out of that cage.”  He can feel the fear and loathing bleeding through into his voice, as his mind screams at him not to show it, it’s never safe to show he feels.

But they are both on the run, and whatever Rogers is now, he isn’t an enemy.  He should have been more considerate of how hellish it must be for Rogers, having Bucky Barnes’ walking corpse a few feet from him.  Although he can’t think of much he could do to make it easier on the man.  Can’t exactly claw his face off.  Too conspicuous he thinks, with something he recognises as an edge of hysteria, at the realisation he would seriously consider tearing his face off if it would spare Rogers’ hurt.  Like the moment of utter terror when Stark had taken down Rogers, the emotion is so strong it shakes him.  Bucky Barnes, he thinks, must have been a man of strong emotions.  Emotions of a kind the Soldier is not used to.  The Soldier knows anger, grown so old and cold he can be barely aware of it some days, and he knows fear, these have been his constant companions.   Now though, now there is passion and it’s terrifying.  There is a want he knows he can’t give in to. 

“I’m sorry,” Rogers says.  “I didn’t… it wasn’t supposed to be a punishment.”

He shrugs.  “I’d have locked me up too.”


	13. So glad we almost made it

At Reggio in the toe of Italy Wanda tenses up.  “We’re being watched.”

“Don’t turn your heads,” the Soldier says quickly.  “Don’t look around.”

“Do you know who it is?” Steve asks. 

“No, I think it’s probably strangers.”

“Hired help,” Sam guesses.  “Stark can afford it.”

“Or it could be government,” says the Soldier.  “Your former colleagues even.”

“OK,” says Steve, “They haven’t tried to jump us yet, and probably won’t in public.  They can’t risk civilians being hurt, it would undercut everything they claim to stand for.  So, we need to stay as public as possible, while we work out a back-up.  Let’s go visit the museum.”

They work out a plan in between admiring the exhibits, among them two spectacular Greek bronze nudes Steve is glad of the chance to see even in these circumstances.  Outside they stop for ice-cream and some obvious selfies, working at acting carefree.  That night they splash out, booking into a large hotel with very obvious and public CCTV coverage.  “Can you beat that and still get out unseen?” Steve asks.

“Yes,” says the Soldier. 

Steve, Sam and Wanda gather in one room that night, and take turns taking watch, though Steve suspects none of them sleep well.  He doesn’t sleep at all, though he should be able to; he’s slept well enough, often enough, before missions before now.   The Soldier is back before morning, and Steve feels the tension in the room ease.  It’s reassuring, in a way, that he wasn’t worried the Soldier would betray them.  It’s still too difficult, to painful, to try and analyse who this man is, but he is a man and Steve has come to trust him. 

They head out later on towards an inconspicuous airstrip with shabby control buildings, in the shadow of some old industrial warehouses.

“They run it as a small freight operation,” says the Soldier.

“Nothing legitimate, I’m guessing,” says Steve.

The hardest part is Sam peeling away from the others, going into one of the smallest buildings.  They’ve settled on Sam being the one to do it, as he is the least likely to be seen as a threat by the watchers, especially with the wings compromised.  But it’s still risky as hell, especially as even with Wanda’s senses they can’t be quite sure which buildings the opponents have chosen to occupy.

If Steve were doing this he would have put people high up, on the upper levels to cover the area.  Also a ground force, behind a set of double doors – he can see more than one – for ease of access.  They will have to move fast though.  Somebody who had researched the area could have guessed where they were heading after they left the hotel, it wouldn’t be hard to put together they were looking for transport. The question is whether the person behind this had expected Wanda to be able to pick up being observed, even by strangers.  Steve doesn’t remember her ever revealing that ability before, so they have a chance.

“Are you sure it’s still operating,” he says for the benefit of any possible listening ears.  “Doesn’t look lively.”

“We’ll likely need to find somebody,” the Soldier says.  He leads the way to one of the nondescript buildings, but Steve steps ahead as they get to the door. 

He half-expects a big swivel chair to spin around and reveal a familiar face, but there’s just a strange man staring at a computer screen.  He looks up reluctantly as they come in, and the bargaining starts up.  Steve’s Italian is good enough to follow, but he leaves the negotiations to Wanda and the Soldier.  It’s taking a long time.  Perhaps they got here unobserved after all.

A phone rings, the man listens for a moment, and Steve can see the tension bleed into him.  He stands, mutters some excuse about needing to attend to some things urgently and goes out. 

There’s no fanfare.  The door they came through just opens, and Natasha comes in as if she was arriving for an Avengers’ strategy meeting.

“Mind if I sit down?  I hate travelling when it’s this hot.”  She takes the stool behind the desk.

“How many have you got out there?” Steve says.

“Enough.  Maybe not enough to hold you, but enough that you couldn’t break through without doing some damage, and you wouldn’t want to do that, Steve.”

“So, what’s your alternative?” Steve says.  “Go back with people who have just shown their willingness to throw one of my team under a train.”

Natasha looks grim.  “Steve, I don’t endorse that, but you are not going to help your team by insisting on picking fights with your own side.”

“Not my side.”

“It should be.  Steve, you can’t save people by refusing to work with anyone who doesn’t agree with you on every single point.  You have to accept other views.”

“Yes, strangely enough I’ve managed to work with Stark up to this point without punching him in the teeth so I do have some experience with that.  But there has to be a line.  Natasha, simply handing your conscience to others isn’t the way.  Didn’t working for SHIELD prove that to both of us?”

“Steve, there’s a point when running your head against a brick wall is simply hurting everyone around you.  This doesn’t have to go further.  Give yourselves up now, we can make an agreement.  The world still needs you, Steve.  You can negotiate terms for your teammates.”  Her eyes flicker over Wanda and the Soldier and then back to Steve.

“You are saying that the others will be held hostage for my good conduct?  Is that it?  Be an obedient soldier and your friends won’t be hurt.  Very SHIELD.”

“For a self-proclaimed optimist you have a very marked tendency to put the worst interpretation on things.  Believe it or not I’m trying to help.”

“I believe you are,” Steve said.  “But the best help you can give is to let us walk out that door.  Or join us.”

“Do you really think that’s a possibility?”

“No,” Steve agreed after a pause.  “I think you are not in control of this.”

“I thought it was Tony who was obsessed with control.”

Steve turns towards the door.  If this isn’t enough time nothing will be. 

“We are walking out.  Don’t try to stop us.”

Of course he expects the semi-circle of agents outside.  Doesn’t really matter who they work for, one thing he knows is the more these agencies fight over territory the more alike they are.

Wanda had been silent during the wangle with Natasha, now she speaks to the surrounding agents, head high.  “Do you honestly believe that any of you can hold us?”

They blanch a little, but they are professionals.  They stand their ground.  And Natasha was right, Steve doesn’t want to hurt them

The roar of a plane engine settles matters.  Sam, who had always loved flying, had got his pilot’s licence during his months with the Avengers.  The Soldier, who knows everything about being a ghost, had checked out the airfield last night, made sure there would be a plane to access.  But it’s going to be close.

Wanda throws her arms out, the wind knocking the agents back, off-balance, and then they are all running, Wanda off the ground with that beautiful flow she has; if Steve still drew he’d like to draw that.  Wanda reaches the open hatch of the plane on her own, but the next step needed a bit of planning.

Steve’s shield is already in the Soldier’s hand.  Steve leaps onto it, upwards, makes the open hatch in an effortless leap and catches the shield as it is spun upwards, catches the grappling line from the Soldier’s arm (far more than just a prosthetic he knows now) and swings the Soldier up after him, the left hand already wrapped round the line to keep some of the strain off his shoulder.  Steve tries to help, hauling in the line, tearing blisters that will be healed in a few hours. As he hears the crack of shots he knows this is no performance.

His left hand catches the Soldier’s right. It’s been only seconds, he’s still close enough to make out faces below.  Shots cut the air towards them, Steve is leaning half out, _don’t let it happen again_ scything through his brain, even though everything’s going well enough.   A bullet slices through his left bicep, but he hangs on, and mere seconds later the swing is complete and he and the Soldier tumble backwards together onto the floor, Wanda helping to pull them in with scarlet threads.  Steve is aware of the hatch snapping shut, but barely aware of the pain in his arm, until he hears Wanda say, accent more marked than usual, “Here, I have the First Aid kit.  But I’m not very good at nursing.”

“Give it here,” says the Soldier promptly.  “Standing orders were to patch my own wounds, whenever possible.  Nobody else ever wanted to.” 

His hands are deft, even the metal one, as Bucky’s hands had always been, whether it was patching up Steve in an alley fight or putting an emergency field dressing on an injured soldier.  It would be so easy to slip into the past, but Steve resists.  As the dressing is finished the Soldier gets up, and Steve sees for the first time the blood running from his calf.

“Your leg.”  The Soldier glances down at it. 

“Minor.”  But he starts to dress the wound anyway. 

“Want me to help?” Steve asks.

“No!”  It’s a harsh almost-snarl, but the Soldier modifies quickly.  “Better not,” he corrects, more quietly.  Steve holds back, respecting the choice.  “A through and through, like yours.  We were lucky.”

“Natasha…” Steve breathes.  He can’t find words to explain, but Wanda seems to understand him anyway.

“I don’t think she knew some of them had live ammunition.  I picked up a wave of shock from her, when you were hit.”

Steve nods.  He believes it. 

He’d been concerned they might have planes on the ground, ready to pursue, but perhaps not enough of the world is on board with the hunt just yet.  There is no pursuit.  The Soldier wins an argument with Sam about whether he should take over the controls for a while, in part because Sam is itching to get a look at Steve’s arm.  After checking the bandaging he pronounces it should heal fine.


	14. So sad they had to fade it

The escape has left them shaken.  After landing the plane in open country they stow away on a truck, then another, running, changing direction, until at last Steve calls a halt.  They camp out in an empty building for a couple of days, lying low.  Even with the serum both Steve and the Soldier’s wounds have become aggravated by the constant moving; hiding out gives them time to heal up. 

The four of them play lengthy card games with the Soldier’s pack.   At the Avengers’ facility card games had been a form of training for Wanda; they never played for money, but trying to block out other players’ reactions to their hands was good practice in controlling her powers.  The Soldier, unsurprisingly, has an extremely good poker face that Steve thinks might test even Natasha.  Steve himself gets distracted, not only by the pain, but by the pictures.  He’d been to the Gallery several times when he was living in Washington, as well as that one time with Bucky.  He sorts through the cards in his hand to recognise paintings, caring little for the value.

Steve has been back to the National Gallery of Art several times since he woke up.  He’d admired the new block, and the sculpture garden, had mixed views on the modern art on display, stared at the few paintings he remembered here before, and felt reassured here were some things unchanged.  He’d even taken Wanda once, trying to get her to feel less like a conscript and more like a friend.  He wonders what had taken the Soldier there. 

One card he finds himself holding with irrational care whenever it comes into his hand.  He’s seen this: a luminous Last Supper, not realistic or meant to be.  It’s a Dali, a later one painted while Steve was in the ice.  Dali of course is dead, like so many others.   Steve never met the man, but he’d loomed so large on the art scene.  Steve remembers simultaneously cursing him because he refused to denounce fascism and cursing him because his art was so damned good.  He’d been vibrantly of the present and now he is gone.  The art remains though, and where some Dali has given him nightmares these last years, this one seems alight with hope, or something very like it.  Damned if Steve quite has a word for what it is, but it’s not bleak.   He’d stood in front of it for hours.

“I can’t say I was much into art growing up,” Sam says, shuffling the pack.  “At school it was mostly portraits, and everyone was white.  And the landscapes seemed a lot of trouble for something that looked like a photograph.”

“Philistine,” Steve says amiably. 

“Some of this though, I can see something.  This one isn’t bad.”

‘This one’ is a van Gogh, vivid green fields against a white and blue sky.  Not something Steve would have predicted a city bred guy like Sam taking to.  It’s a striking picture for sure. 

 “Do you still draw?” Wanda says.  Steve looks at her in surprise.  “I went to an exhibition on you.  There were some old sketches.”

Steve is starting to develop a personal grudge against that exhibition.  “I don’t get much time now,” he says. 

~~~

The second day the Soldier ignores Wilson’s objections about his leg needing to rest and takes the time to walk into the nearest town, and find a place that has wi-fi, just to catch up.  While it’s not wholly unexpected it still smacks him in the face that one of the first things trending is himself.

It’s not everything, he finds after a lengthy search, with something balled up tight in his chest so he feels like he’s choking.  There’s no mention in any of the files of James Barnes, and that’s something.  They haven’t taken Bucky’s good name yet. And he wonders if that was some whisper of compunction from Stark, some willingness to believe the Soldier isn’t James Barnes.  But there is blurred camera footage from DC, and other material put together from SHIELD and HYDRA files that were never part of Romanoff’s internet dump.  There are his kills, not all but more than enough to damn him.  And there is more footage from New York, from the Avengers’ facility.  It doesn’t surprise him they had cameras, he’d expected it.  But to see they’ve taken pictures of Wanda playing cards with him and used it against her, that makes him so angry he has to close the browser and clench his flesh fist until the fingers hurt.  He could tear this whole place apart from anger, but it’s not the fault of anyone here, so he fights to hold it in. The walk back helps, a little. 

This is to discredit Rogers, of course.  Falcon doesn’t have much of a name yet, and Wanda was never trusted, but Rogers is a very different matter.   They need to show him as either corrupted or controlled, and the presence of the Soldier with the group is tailor made for just that.  There’s little to be done.

“Expect another boost for the Imposter Cap theory,” Wilson says, philosophically, when the Soldier brings the news.

“It’s not right,” Rogers says angrily.  “Using you like this.” Rogers’ anger makes him feel oddly better.  It’s such a change, having someone angry for him. 

“Do you think it was Stark?” he says.  There had been no mention of Stark’s parents in the leaked documents. 

“This doesn’t feel like Tony,” Rogers says slowly.  “He’s honest in his way.  If he put the files out, I believe he would have put them all out.  But he may have passed on the information, to someone he thought was well intended.”

“Zemo?” says Wilson.

“Perhaps,” Rogers says.  “Or Zemo may have had his own sources.  Or Ross may have.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Soldier says.  It’s unjustified to feel so exposed, when it’s nothing he doesn’t deserve.

That night after they play poker Wanda leaves one of the cards from her last, carelessly played, hand lying face up.  It’s the same card that the Soldier remembers Wanda looking at for a long time, the day she first talked to him about Pietro; part of a series that represents a voyage through life.  He’d seen it when he went back to the Gallery, looking for some trace of James Barnes in himself.  This one is the stormiest of the four, the golden boat shown against a rough river surrounded by rocks, but light falls, and a bright figure watches far above.  There’s hope in it, he thinks, and hopes that is what Wanda saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art in this chapter:
> 
> Dali, ‘The Sacrament of the Last Supper’, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.46590.html  
> Van Gogh, ‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers’, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.163323.html  
> Thomas Cole ‘The Voyage of Life: Manhood’, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.52452.html


	15. Help me make the most

Of course Steve’s not about to sit back and just take it.  He never has, especially not when it’s others taking the blows.  Because the Soldier is one of his team now, even, perhaps, a friend of sorts; and Steve is still angry with himself at the knowledge he could have reached out to this man who has suffered so much, back at the Avengers’ base.  The knowledge that it would only have taken a little kindness.  How long since anyone had been kind to him?

And Tony may not have been behind this last leak, but he made the choice to hunt them, and he hasn’t repudiated his allies.

 “OK, time in New York should be…”

“7.35 pm.  Approximately,” says the Soldier. 

“That’s what I thought,” Steve says, and dials Maria Hill.

“Free to talk?” he says. 

“Free enough.  I take it this isn’t an emergency?”

“Well, nobody is trying to kill me right now,” Steve says.  “But Stark isn’t making life any easier.  We need to take the fight back to him.  What footage do you think you can get from the Ultron mess?”

“He admitted to being behind Ultron, Captain.”

“Yes, but he spun it.  Controlled the way it came out.  I know Tony records everything in that tower of his.  There has to be something.”

“Well, I still have my SI clearance, and FRIDAY likes me.  I’ll see what I can do.  It’s a one-time only deal though.  Stark will find out it was me, there’ll be no way to prevent that.”

“Make this time count then,” Steve says.  “I’ll owe you, Maria.”  He doesn’t insult her by suggesting she doesn’t have to do it. 

“You owe me a few already.  Don’t worry, I’m keeping score.”

Two days later they risk a stop at a hostel with wi-fi, and find Hill’s results on line.  There’s footage of Tony in the lab with Bruce, plugging an AI that was probably made by either HYDRA or Loki into his systems, then going off to the party.  Steve hadn’t even known how that part had gone down, and his reactions are pretty graphic.  Then there’s a clip of him laughing when challenged over what he had done.  “You stayed friends with him?” Wanda says, her voice harsh.  “I never… I know some of the blame is mine, but I never **laughed** about Ultron.”  Steve doesn’t know how to answer.  He’d been angry at the time, but also reminded of Howard.  Because trying to laugh off things he knew weren’t a laughing matter was something Howard did, and that was always the trouble with Tony.  It was so hard sometimes, not to lash out at him, because he wasn’t Howard, and yet he was enough like Howard to rub in just how many friends Steve had lost.

The results are a firestorm of fury, and Steve would be lying if he didn’t admit to an entirely petty feeling of satisfaction.  He even reads out some of the choicer comments to the others.  It’s not that much of a victory, though, because the backlash is against Tony and not against the Accords or their other supporters.

~~~

The Soldier hadn’t operated much in Africa.  HYDRA had other ways of spreading chaos there.  He can still enjoy it in a way, watching the life around him, that is so different from the life in American cities, and yet underneath it all, he thinks as he as he watches two boys tussling, people are always people.  He’s fairly sure he’s a person now.  One that doesn’t quite work in the right ways, but if Rumlow and Pierce and Zola could qualify as human he’s damn well going to be human too.

Still, being accustomed to operating as a ghost, he feels exposed here, with his pale skin, and the servers in his arm whirring worse than usual trying to keep cool.  Trying to stick to tourist trails proves hard.  Wilson does much of the transport arranging, but even he stands out as an American.  The Soldier has been hunted since his escape from HYDRA, and he doesn’t expect that ever to change, but there is a different kind of fear to it, now he has companions to worry for.  And he does worry.  Of the others Wanda seems to take it best. Wilson is tense, and barely smiles.  Rogers talks less.  The Soldier is angered when he looks at them.  They deserve better.

He got careless in Italy.  Had started to enjoy being part of the group too much, to forget the awareness – it’s not paranoia if it’s real – that had kept him running this long. 

“OK,” he says the next morning.  “We really need to pool our knowledge.  Assume they are going all out to find us, how would they do it?”

“I guess you’re considering all the usual ways,” Wilson says.  “Security alerts, border checks.”

“Yes.  Although it’s worth asking how much will the local authorities really want to catch us?”

“Avengers aren’t popular in Africa,” Rogers says.  “Not after what happened in Durban.”  He glances at Wanda, not exactly an apology.  “That first leak won’t have helped.”

“They’re not likely to be our friends at least,” the Soldier says.  “So what else.  What does Stark have up his sleeve?

“Observation technology,” Rogers says.  “It’s powerful stuff.  Supposed to be able to identify people from a satellite. “

“Then why did it take so long to find us?”

“HYDRA piggybacked on Stark’s network for Project Insight; there were plenty of HYDRA tentacles inside his company.  Anyway, when Project Insight failed someone panicked and tried to take out the whole system.  Tony could have repaired it, I guess, but he’s had a lot of other things on his mind.”

“Perhaps the way HYDRA meant to use it unnerved him,”   Wilson says.    

“Perhaps,” Rogers says.  “Anyway, that’s all I can think of.  The tech may not be operating at full capability.”

“Even if the facial recognition capability is out, it could still pick us up,” the Soldier says.  “Three whites stand out in Africa, especially if we’re going off the tourist trails.  Moving at night might help, though I can’t say how much without knowing more about Stark’s tech.”

“There’s Vision,” Wanda says.  She sounds reluctant.  “None of us fully know what Vision can do.”

“That’s true,” Rogers said.  “But he told me he wouldn’t fight against me.  I’m guessing that means he won’t hunt me either.  There’s nothing we can do to block him anyway.”

“Move by night, then,” the Soldier says.  “Split up when we can.”

“No,” Rogers says.  “We stay together.  I’m not going to risk anything else.” 

The Soldier disagrees, but he’s not the head of this mission, so he simply gives Rogers a long look before saying, “OK, for major moves, but if anyone has to go out in the day, it should never be more than one of us.  Two at most.”

They make it to Nigeria on the Trans-Sahara Highway, following its line across the scorching desert.  Part of the way they can use standard local transport, but there is a stretch where they need to risk hiring a specialist vehicle.  Rogers and the Soldier alternate on the driving, to let Wilson and Wanda rest more. They need to drive by day for this stretch, but they’re in the vehicle almost all the time anyway, so the Soldier knows it’s unreasonable to be nervous. 

Rogers’ has near photographic recall, unsurprisingly similar to the Soldier’s own, which gets them successfully to the point just over the Nigerian border where Romanoff had pinpointed the vibranium arriving.  “Not large quantities, according to the intel we had before,” Rogers tells them.  “Just one truck at a time.  It’s not a very common mineral even in Wakanda, they wouldn’t be able to smuggle large amounts out.”

“Do you think we will be able to find proof it’s HYDRA here?”  says Wanda.

“Possibly, but whoever’s running the chain here may not even know HYDRA is behind it.  Anyway the crucial point isn’t proving it’s HYDRA is taking the vibranium.  It’s proving who is running HYDRA.”  Rogers stares towards the corrugated iron building in front of them.  “I doubt we’ll get that here.  It’s just a staging post.  But it won’t hurt to try.”

The Soldier goes in that night.  He’s the best suited to this mission, although it’s hardly a difficult one by his standards.  The security is laughable, the safe yields easily.  No need for a light, his night vision is quite good enough to scan through the papers for anything that might prove useful.  He photographs them on a cell phone and is back out with no trouble at all, resisting the temptation to move around objects on the three battered desks just to mess with people. 

The papers don’t have what Wilson calls a ‘smoking gun’, don’t have a name.  But they do have an address of kinds.

“Alaska?” says Wanda, dubiously.  “Bit of a strange choice.”

“HYDRA always seemed to have a thing for putting their bases somewhere where it’s cold,” says Rogers.  Didn’t they just, the Soldier thinks, remembering snow bound bases in the war, remembering Commandos grumbling about why HYDRA never seemed to put their bases somewhere nice and warm. 

“We don’t know it’s a base,” he says.

“No, but we do know it’s where the vibranium is headed.” says Rogers.  “Could still be another staging post, but better than nothing.”

“So,” says the Soldier, “do we head for Alaska now or Wakanda?”

“Wakanda is nearer, and it’s the source of it all.”

“But it may be that the extraction operation is being run by another bunch of stooges who don’t know what is really going on,” says Wilson.  “Alaska must be closer to the end game.”

“Fair point, but it’s better to go to Wakanda and draw a blank, than go to Alaska, and have to come back to Wakanda.” Rogers seems to brace his shoulders as he looks straight at the Soldier.  “I’m sorry to have to bring this up, but I do know there have been cases of HYDRA implanting trigger phrases in the minds of those they brainwash.  If you think there might be anything like that, now is the time to tell us.”

“No,” the Soldier says.  He hates having to expose even this much of himself, but it must be done.  “They did use them, but they always wore off after a few days.  Less if it had been a while since the last mindwipe.  Serum, I suppose.  It won’t be a problem.”

It isn’t the whole story.  There was a trick to breaking past their controls, a trick he’d learned back when he was still not all Asset, still enough of Bucky to remember to fight, one he couldn’t describe in words.  They did wear down in time, but also once the mindwipes started to break down, and that was serum also he supposed, every time that happened he would start to know he hated HYDRA, start to fight back against the controls.  And at some level below conscious memory he’d always known how.

That’s where he’s so angry with himself.  Because he’d never managed to break free, to break out when it mattered, when he would have had a chance.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger codes are not going to be part of this story. I never planned on using them, since I wanted this story to be about what happens after the brain washing, and having it happen again felt like a step back


	16. Maybe we started this fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some pretty grim violence in this chapter

Steve wasn’t prepared for Sam to be the next target, because he had never thought there could be anything there the other side could use.  So the leak of Sam’s war record staggers him.

“Court martial.”  The words spill out before he can check them.

“Yeah.”  He hasn’t seen that look on Sam before.

“OK,” Steve says.  “I’m not going to ask.  But I’ll listen if you want to tell me.”

Some of the stiffness goes out of Sam.  “I punched an officer.”

“I’m sure Rogers has at least thought about it.  Often.” The Soldier’s tone is completely deadpan.  It breaks the remaining tension effectively.

“Probably would have done it, except it’s not a good idea when you’ve got the serum,” Steve says.

Sam rubs his forehead.  “It was after Riley was killed.  That raid should never have happened.  It was just a village, not a military camp.  False intelligence.  Pararescue were called in to bring out the injured civilians, civilians our own troops had shot up, but the guys we were meant to be fighting had heard it all go down and showed up at just the wrong time.  We shouldn’t even have been there.  So yes, I punched the man that gave the order.  They busted me down a pay grade, and issued a formal letter of reprimand.  Might have been worse, except they didn’t want a big stink.”

“That why you got out?” Steve says.

“Not because of the court-martial or the reprimand.   Because of the raid?  Yeah.  Partly, at least.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Steve says.  “And sorry it’s being dug up now, because you chose to stand with me on this.”

“I’m sorry it happened at all.  But it did.  No changing it.  And I didn’t chose to go on the run just because I like you.  Sorry if that hurts your ego, Cap.”

“It’ll live,” Steve says, and they try to go on as before. 

~~~

The road to Wakanda is a recent build, and they are able to take a long distance bus, travelling overnight.  Wanda sleeps through most of it; she’s not good at getting sleep in daylight.  Steve doesn’t need much sleep since he got the serum so it’s no hardship to stay awake. 

“Listen,” the Soldier says. 

“Aircraft.  Some kind of chopper.”   

“Coming for us?” Sam asks, blinking a little.  He must have been dozing.

“I doubt we’re lucky enough for them to be after anyone else,” the Soldier says drily.  Steve can hear the slight whirring as his metal arm recalibrates beneath his sleeve.  He’s realised by now it’s part of the way the Soldier prepares for battle. 

Steve looks around the bus.  “We have to get off,” he says. 

“We won’t lose them that easily,” the Soldier warns.

“We can’t stay.   We’ll be putting the people who are on the bus in danger.  We have to get away from them, at least.”

“Right,” the Soldier says.  There’s an additional door at the back, presumably for an emergency exit.  The Soldier has it open in seconds.  The bus must be doing fifty miles an hour at least, but Sam still jumps, his combat training allowing him to roll his landing successfully.  Wanda of course has no problem, and the Soldier practically hits the ground sauntering.  Steve jumps last, and gets them all off the road as fast as he can.  Because the Soldier is probably right they won’t lose them easily, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

The hunting takes time.  The road has been pushed through a swath of tropical forest, that isn’t untouched but still looks pretty thick.  Sam can’t use his wings here.  The Soldiers takes the lead, his night vision as good as Steve’s and his stealth skills probably better.  But the pursuit draws nearer all the time.  “They must have body heat detectors,” he deduces.  “Wanda, can you…?”

“Unfamiliar technology,” Wanda says grimly.  “I knew something about Stark’s tech from working with the Avengers.”

“I’ve got a deflector in my arm,” the Soldier reports.  “But it only works for one person.”

There’s a hideous crash of splintering wood as one of the air vehicles – Steve hasn’t got a good enough view through the tree tops to identify them – lands.  It’s close enough his advanced hearing can pick up the whirr of doors opening, troops must be pouring out. 

He knows the hunt is closing in, but he is still taken aback, when _something_ scythes through the forest and trees start to topple, trunks and branches bearing down with crushing force.  Steve has his shield up, catching solid wood upon it, holding the mass up just long enough to step out from underneath.  Beside him there is a flash of red, Wanda using her powers to push the slaughtered trees away from herself and Sam.  A shout, more crashing.  He realises they had provoked the red flash deliberately, guiding the ground troops. 

“Keep together!”  They are strongest when they complement each other.

The ground is suddenly smooth beneath his feet, they’ve stumbled onto a track way.  This is bad, less cover.  To his left the Soldier shouts, and Steve, about to lead them all back into the trees, runs across, sees him point.  Carved into a tree, sprayed in red, is a coiled snake.

“Stay parallel to the road,” the Soldier shouts.  He veers to the left, and they run with him.  “It’s a HYDRA sign,” the Soldier tells them.  “We were on the highroad HYDRA has been using to transport the vibranium.  That sign means there’s a HYDRA safehouse nearby.  The tail of the snake points to it.”

“Find it,” Steve orders.  “Then find us.  I’ll keep them diverted.”  He tries to seize up their attackers as far as possible with the trees masking so much of his view.  “Wanda, Sam, try to get on the flank, but don’t go too far.  Wanda, you hit them with a blast when you hear the banging stop. “

He jumps then, propelling himself into the largest of the overhanging trees, concentrates for a couple of moments to get the geometry right in his head, then sends the shield spinning, bouncing from trunk to trunk, knocking with a clang against the wood.  There is a gurgling, cut-off shriek, and Steve’s stomach twists, because ever since the reveal that half his SHIELD missions were really HYDRA missions he’s questioned every blow he’s dealt, every injury.  Because he’s maybe just killed somebody who didn’t deserve to die.

The shield returns perfectly to his hand, he throws it a second time, with no cries, then a third, before he drops to the ground.  The crashing ceasing is the signal.  Wanda’s red cuts through the dark, and he hears a couple of disorientated shouts.  These must be elite trained professionals, that they’d give their location away like this shows they are really rattled.  There’s a quick burst of shots, different sound from the gunfire that has been periodically cutting through the night as their hunters close in.  That must be Sam.  Probably a diversion only, Steve knows Sam well enough to be sure he won’t be happy about killing here and now either.  He also knows Sam’s strength in hand to hand combat, some of these guys won’t be knowing what hit them. 

Steve can’t rest on his team mates’ work.  He moves quickly, slipping through the trees.  He’s not as silent as some he has worked with, but speed makes up for it, by the time people know he is there he usually isn’t any longer.  He sets his back against one of the trees, digs in his toes, heaves and hear the roots tear from the ground with a horrible sucking sound that makes him feel regret for the strong living thing, uprooted because some humans need a diversion.  But he can’t afford that, so he runs to another and pushes again.  Keep it unpredictable, this is about buying time. 

But two can dance to that tune, and the next red that cuts through is fire.  A roar of something like a flame thrower.  Steve swings towards it, towards the sound of trouble, and hears a call in his head.  It’s not any form of words, just a signal of direction coupled with a sense of urgency. 

It takes Steve seconds, literally running through an opponent at one point to reach the scene.  The ground has been burned away in wide circle around Sam and Wanda.  He can see small trails of red coming from Wanda’s fingers, a sure sign she’s fighting to hold back, which here and now means she’s deeply afraid of the consequences if she lets loose.  The team around her must be as well, he can see their weapons, guns and flame throwers raised, see far too much tension in the arms that hold them.

“Don’t let that foul creature-“ one of the men starts, angrily, and Steve throws the shield at knee height, throws himself the other way, taking down as much of the circle as he can.  On the other side of the scorched clearing there is a volley if shots, he sees men falling, not dead, clutching at their legs, sees the flash of metal as the Soldier slings himself through the other side of the circle in a roll very much like Steve’s own.  Then both are on their feet, Steve grabs Sam’s arms, the Soldier grabs Wanda, still holding in for now, and they run with all the speed no regular human can match away from the burned ground, through the forest.

“Ow!” Sam says, a few moments later, rubbing his arms.

“Sorry,” Steve tells him.  But there’s no time for more.  “I’ll give cover, you three go ahead to the safehouse.”

Steve should have taken a gun, he realises.  There’s nothing particularly noble about his reluctance to use guns, a large metal disk is a deadly weapon if thrown with super strength, he just isn’t comfortable with them.  Right now, the opponents are probably getting used to a metal disk in close quarters combat, and he only has a couple of throwing knives on him.  He has speed though, and several antagonists go down with a calculated punch to the stomach (it took days of practice on SHIELD dummies before he could be sure of not punching hard enough to bust internal organs).

It’s a trip wire in the end.  So simple, in this high-tech age Steve wasn’t even watching.  His enhanced vision could probably have picked it out even in the dark.  It’s razor sharp, and Steve’s speed undoes the advantage his injury resistance would give him normally, he goes down, calves streaming blood, and it’s only for a second, but long enough for fire to burn an agonising trail across his legs.  He screams, but he doesn’t black out. 

Three of them are advancing.  His legs hurt, badly, but pain was a familiar companion before the serum, he can get them under him.  He doesn’t stand yet.  He reaches for a knife, gets his fingers on the hilt as they close in.

“Traitor!” one of them snarled.  “Rat!”  Oddly it’s the childish insult that gets to him, the kid looks so young.  But he can’t think of that.  He waits until they’re close and launches…

He gets the first man down, gets to the second, slashes and…

He’d been aiming for the calf.  A disabling wound, but somehow the kid’s knees go out from under him, the knife gets him in the thigh, he screams and there is so much blood.  And even though it’s dark Steve’s vision lets him see the twisted face, so young…

Like the German sentry, couldn’t have been more than sixteen, raising hands in surrender, but they were behind the lines, they had a cliff climb ahead, couldn’t take prisoners, couldn’t let him go or they’d lose the whole operation and likely the Resistance cell helping them would be wiped out.  And he made a point of never asking the men to do something he wouldn’t, so he’d thrown the knife straight into the throat…

He freezes, and a kick to the ribs lands him on his back.  The third kid, advancing, the modified flame-thrower in his hand, his face twisted with rage and hate.  Steve knows, in some distant way, his body isn’t done even now, but he can’t think of a good enough reason to move as the flame carves through the air towards his chest.  This time he doesn’t hear his own scream.


	17. All we had burned on the pyre

Steve drifts in and out.  Voices circle him. 

People are arguing above him  ...  is it SHIELD come to thaw him again?  But SHIELD is wrong, he has to warn Peggy.…   Has to hear what they are saying, so he will know if it’s HYDRA…

Next time he’s aware of anything it’s Sam checking the dressings and despite himself a grunt of pain slips out.  “Sorry,” Sam says.  “We have a limited supply of Banner’s knock-out-an-elephant-sized pain killers.”

Steve loses more time.  At one point he’s sure he’s young and shivering with fever, and Bucky is leaning over him, tucking in blankets.

“You’re doing well.  I know it won’t feel like it right now, wish there was more we could do, but you’re going to be fine.”

His voice is warm.  Steve’s not sure why this surprises him, not sure why he wants to say ‘Missed you.’  He’s cold under the blankets, but he knows Bucky will be doing all he can, so Steve doesn’t complain.  “Thanks, Buck,” he mumbles.  “Wake me…”  He can’t remember what he needs to be woken for.

Later there are more voices.

“…. It’s healing, from what I’ve seen before he’ll be fine in a few days.”

“With me it would take four.  It will be draining his body, so he’ll need all the nutrition you can get into him.  Keep him warm as well.”

He is used to pain.  There had been a time, before the serum, when the first question in the morning had not been whether there was pain, but how much and where.  Now the pain strips years away.  He should be young, huddled under blankets in Brooklyn, waiting for his mother to get home from work, disgusted with himself because she worked so hard, and here he was useless again because he could not defeat the pain. 

The new body has always been unreal, as much a costume as Captain America.

~~~

They move around each other quietly.  There’s no need, the bunker is below ground, the Soldier had activated the camouflage mechanism as soon as they were all inside.  Someone would have to walk right into the door to see anything but an earth bank, and even then they’d probably have to feel the outlines with their fingers.  So they are safe, but they are quiet, in the windowless concrete rooms.

Wilson changes dressings – there were supplies in the base thankfully – with a steady hand, and says little.  Wanda says less.  Once his burns have healed up somewhat, the Soldier tasks himself with making sure everybody gets fed, there are food stocks that need little more than heating up and carry basic packet instructions.  Wilson gets up enough energy to tell him he’s aggravating his wounds, but the Soldier knows his body, and he knows the wounds will heal.  He stops taking the painkillers, not wanting any drugs in his system.  Even with them he wasn’t sleeping properly.

Rogers’ burns would probably have killed a regular person without hospital treatment, but his body is almost as manufactured as the Soldier’s and new skin grows in to replace the old at a rate fast enough it’s easy to track the progress day by day.  The Soldier doesn’t want Steve to suffer longer, but still every day that heals Rogers’ burns, and the lesser burns he himself received pulling Rogers away from their enemies, rubs in how far from human they are.

Rogers is feverish still though, eyes burning and skin clammy.  Trying to find something to distract them the Soldier tries his tablet.  There’s a signal – of course there is, HYDRA would want to stay connected.

He hadn’t been looking for news about their group, but as he navigates a headline flashes up anyway, and he can’t resist clicking.  He hadn’t expected any report on the fight of a few days ago, but there it is.  An interview with one of the teams cursing the ‘freaks’ and ‘monsters’.   A press conference by Stark, promising to bring ‘lawless elements’ to justice.  Comments full of bile and fear. 

“So much hatred,” Wanda says in a near whisper.  She’d come up behind him some time before.  “I know what it is to hate like that.”  The Soldier knows as well.  Of course he does.  “So many of them,” Wanda says.  He has no words for her. 

He thinks of looking up Bucky’s family, seeing what they are doing, but his mind feels poisoned, in no state to look at the records of day to day life of people who have no idea who is browsing their sites.  He also doesn’t want to risk reading a denunciation of Wanda of himself, or even Rogers or Wilson.  There’s a solitaire game loaded on to the tablet, so he and Wanda play that for a while.  Wilson is getting some sleep, worn out, so they play in the room where Rogers tosses and mutters restlessly.  Sometimes he calls out for people who are dead.  Sometimes the name is ‘Bucky’.

He had thought things would get better when Rogers healed.  They do, up to a point, but Rogers seems just as grim as the rest of them. 

“They looked so damned young,” he says.  “They see us as...”  He stops there, and the Soldier feels a spasm of pity.  He’d never expected anything else, but Rogers was used to adulation. 

A good thing is that Rogers’ injury had led to a shift in his relations with Wilson.  Wilson had not been hostile, exactly, but the Soldier had recognised that he was protective towards Rogers, not physically as there was no doubt of Rogers’ ability to take care of himself in that respect, but in other ways.  He had not been convinced the Soldier was not a threat to Rogers’ well-being, which the Soldier did not at all blame him for.  Rogers’ injury, or rather the aftermath as the three of the worked to care for a difficult patient (Steve Rogers had always been a difficult patient, Bucky’s memories tell him) had left Wilson rather more relaxed around him.

“You know,” Wilson says one evening.  “I feel pretty weird just calling you Soldier all the time.”

“It’s what I am.”

“Yeah, but it’s what we all are to one degree or another.  It’s a description not a name.”

“Never got issued a name,” the Soldier says.

“You could choose one.”

He could, he thinks.  He could choose.  A name.   It’s a big thing.  Taking a name, means asserting he’s a person.  Pushing others to see him as a person.  Sooner or later one of them will push back, and that will be rough. 

It’s so much easier when people are shooting at you.

“Need to think,” he says.  “Get it right.”

“There are name books, you know,” Wilson says.  He’s seen some in stores, but it doesn’t feel quite right.  “Yes,” he says.  “I’ll think about it.” Wilson is here, so he tries something else.  “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.  If I don’t want to answer then I’ll-“

“Tell me to mind my own damn business?”  He puts amusement into his voice, testing the ground.  Jokes are something people make.  Personal questions are something people ask.  If Wilson accepts him as a person, it’s a start. 

“Not in so many words, unless you’re really yanking my chain.”

“Why are you here?” the Soldier says.  Wanda isn’t hard to figure out.  She wants to atone, that was why she joined the Avengers.  She doesn’t trust Stark, so she was against the Act.  Rogers … well, he doesn’t even have to wonder about Rogers.  Wilson though?  He seems like a decent person but there are a lot of ways of being decent that don’t involve flying around with wings or getting yourself outlawed.

“I get wings, I get an adrenaline hit and I get to help people,” Wilson said promptly.  Good enough, and yet…

“Do you still do a lot of rescues?”  He knew Wilson had been pararescue, he’s life had been spread out for all to view after he joined the Avengers.  And the thing is, he remembers his own body belonging to a man who liked to help, and he remembers while helping people you’d never see wasn’t bad, fighting a war had never been the same as pulling a bully off somebody back in Brooklyn.

He remembers how it had felt, the first time he’d saved somebody.  A man in a ridiculous flag-outfit, who he still hadn’t known, not really.  He’d acted without thought, and then, when he’d laid the man down and saw him breathe, what he’d felt was wonder.  He’d saved someone.  He hadn’t known he could.  He remembered how it had felt when he pulled a living person out of rubble in Durban.  Taking out HYDRA heads had been doing the world a good turn, but it hadn’t felt anything like that.

“Sometimes,” Wilson says.  “But Avengers work tends to be more big picture, if you get me.  I held off joining for a while because of that.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Crazy dude wearing a flag asked for my help.”

The Soldier thinks about what to say next.  There’s a trick to this, one HYDRA taught without meaning to, because when you know next to nothing you learn to interpret.

( _The man on the bridge.  Who was he?_

_You met him earlier this week on another mission._ ) 

(And Pierce had told him something there.  There’d been three men in the car, on the bridge.  But Pierce had no doubt which man the Asset meant.  Which told the Asset that he **had** known the man, and Pierce knew it and Pierce had been braced for that question. 

Not that putting that together had done any good.)

He’d spaced out for a moment there, he realises.  Wilson is watching him.

“You calling Captain America crazy?” he says, putting the amusement into his voice.

Wilson relaxes at that.  “You met him, right?  Great guy, but someone’s got to keep him alive, ‘cause it’s not one of his priorities.”  It was a real tribute to Wilson that he said that to the man who nearly killed Rogers without putting any nasty twist on it.

“I get that,” he says, and he thinks he does.  Wilson likes to save people.  Any man who allows a brainwashed assassin to beat his head in needs some saving.  Saving a few other people along the way is a bonus.

“OK, exchange of information,” Wilson says.  “Why are you here?”

“HYDRA,” the Soldier says.  “Common goals.”

“That all?  Still?”

It’s not all, but it’s all he can allow himself to believe in.  Rogers’ offer had been genuine he thinks, but he still can’t see himself just getting issued with an Avengers’ card someday even if the current mess gets sorted somehow.  And Wilson’s a good person, but the Soldier still finds his tongue freezing when he’s asked to show where he’s vulnerable.

“Man,” Wilson says.  “It’s not an offence to like people.”

“It can be.”  Not that’d he’d ever liked anyone with HYDRA that he can remember, but if he had they’d have found a way to use that against him too.  But he doesn’t want HYDRA owning him any longer.

“Although,” he says, and even these words are flat, too flat.  “I guess I’m getting used to you guys.  Even the snoring.”

“The snoring would be Steve,” Wilson says firmly.


	18. All that we've amassed

The paint is burned almost off Steve’s shield.  Running his hands over the blackened rim, he wonders why he hadn’t used it to protect his body, and whether he hadn’t been able to react in time or whether he hadn’t tried. 

He almost welcomes the pain.  It’s better than wondering how badly he’d hurt those kids they were fighting, how many might be dead, because they see Steve as a monster.  How his friends are hunted and vilified, because they chose to follow him. 

Sam tries to cheer him, talking brightly about the progress of his healing.  Of course he’s healing.  He always does.  The Soldier says little.  Steve sleeps, or tries to sleep, with his hand on the shield’s blistered surface.

Sam and the Soldier keep a check on his body, the Soldier comparing Steve’s healing to his own history.  It troubles Steve, hearing the man coolly discussing the ways his body has been harmed, as though it were nothing more than machinery.  Sam looks pretty sick as well.

“What kind of treatment did they give you anyway?” Sam asks once.

“Depends,” says the Soldier.  “At base they’d usually pump sedative in until I healed up.  In the field, it was a matter of working with what was there.”  His expression is closed off, even more than usual, so nobody pushes it.

It’s Wanda who tiptoeing around him first.  “Are you regretting it?” she says, on an evening when Steve is almost healed.  “Are you wishing you’d just done as they demanded.”

“I’m thinking I should have stopped it going this far,” Steve tells her honestly. “I’m thinking I should have found a way that didn’t get people hurt.”

“You can still go back.  You and Sam, you can still make your peace.  Put the blame on me, if you chose.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.  So don’t suggest it.”

“Then when do we move out?  If we don’t finish this, then everything so far has been for nothing.”

She’s right.  It doesn’t help Steve sleep any better, but he starts to plan again that evening. 

The others have already been through the base for anything usable, but apart from food and medical supplies there isn’t much.  None of them want to use HYDRA weapons, and there are no useful documents, just some rather outdated maps.  The base it seems has not been used in years, and Wakanda ending its long isolationism has changed a fair amount of things in this part of Africa.

The next day they pack up to leave, and in the evening share a bottle of unopened whiskey to raise their spirits.  Steve can’t get drunk of course, but he still enjoys the burn. As Sam and Wanda call it a night he looks at the Soldier and wonders if the same is true for him.  He could ask.  Asking a question like that of the Soldier had seemed impossible not long before, but however much or little of Bucky is left, the man in his body is no longer a stranger.

~~~

Rogers healing up is a relief above all else, but also a distraction, because as the Soldier watches Wilson check that the last of the burns have healed he can’t help but dwell on just what a good job Erskine’s serum had done.  He remembers Bucky wanting to put marks on that new body, too damn perfect, disconcertingly perfect, like a statue come to life.  Great for Steve but he’d wanted to prove that body human.  The memory sends a jolt of desire through him.  Not new – his body had apparently decided he was human enough for erections some months earlier – but its new for the lust to be so focused.  Even when he was running through Bucky’s memories it had still been memories of desire only, but here and now he wanted Rogers almost as fiercely as Bucky had wanted the Steve of long ago. 

Well, he can live with that, he’ll just have to be a bit careful. 

“Can you get drunk?” Rogers asks unexpectedly.

“Can I…?”

“I can’t.  I thought you might be the same.”

“No,” the Soldier says, after a pause.  “I can’t get drunk.”

“Do you wish you could?”  He’s not quite looking at the Soldier.  “Do you have memories of what it was like?”

He had tried more than once, when his mind began to unscramble enough to grasp the things he’d done.  He’d downed a whole bottle of vodka in the confused knowledge that this was something people did to forget.  Later, when his mind had started to clear a bit, he hadn’t wanted anything that might weaken control.  Bucky had enjoyed alcohol though.  He remembers that. 

“Yes, I have memories.”  He hesitates, then says, “You practically got drunk on the smell in a bar back then.”

Rogers gives a snort.  “You would have to remember the embarrassing bits.”

“Wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t been so mouthy.”  Oh, but he has to stop this.   That had come out to easily, too naturally, too like Bucky Barnes.  He taps metal fingers on the edge of the table they’ve been standing the bottle on, desperately reminding himself of who and what he is. 

“Thor brought some Asgardian stuff that worked on me once,” Rogers says. “You should try it, if he ever comes back to Earth.”

“You’re suggesting we get drunk together?”  This is a really strange conversation.  Or rather it’s the fact Rogers sounds so normal, so casual, that’s strange.

“We could go glass for glass,” Rogers suggests.  “I’ve never had an equal drinking contest.  When we tried in Brooklyn I- ”  He stops abruptly.  The Soldier says nothing.  Rogers had been doing his best, but the ghost of Bucky Barnes is still in the room.

Rogers takes a deep breath.  “Sam’s right, you should choose a name.  But before you do…”  He’s avoiding looking at the Soldier again.  “The helicarriers,” he says.  The Soldier tenses.  Why bring that up now?  “The kill list was extracted afterwards, from the SHIELD computers.  We didn’t make it public.  But I looked.  You were on it.”

It doesn’t surprise him.  One last time, Pierce had said.  It could have been a lie, but why bother?  Looking back he doesn’t think anything Pierce had said in that hellish vault had been a direct lie, though the man had had a really skewed definition of words like gift and freedom. 

“Figures,” he says.  “Insight made me obsolete.  Why bother with a bullet when you can just add a line on a list.”

“Don’t you care?” Rogers says, wonderingly.

Oh, he cares.  He cares with a throbbing ache of anger, because that life had been one long hell, but he’d still wanted to live.  Because they’d taken everything else, and they were going to take the brief times he got to walk and breath and see the sky.  And they’d coolly added a line to a list.  But it’s not like he’d deserved to live.  He says nothing.

“How do you think they listed you?” Rogers says, and that hadn’t occurred to him.  The Asset?  That wasn’t even a codename, but it was all there’d been.  So probably that.  “They listed you as James Buchanan Barnes,” Rogers says. 

His hand cracks the table. 

“Just think about it,” Rogers says, and his voice is not quite steady.

~~~

They are halfway to Wakanda, when Steve’s phone rings.  It’s the one Hill gave him, and he feels his stomach clenched as he reaches for it. 

“Has something happened?”

“Nothing bad,” Hill’s starting to pick up the enigmatic thing from Fury.

“How did Tony take the leak?”

“Well, Stark’s not likely to let me into his tower again, but he won’t try and prosecute.  Which you expected.  But that’s not why I’m calling, Steve.  You may have some trouble believing this is genuine.  Will you trust my judgement?”

“You haven’t let me down yet,” Steve says.  The next thing he hears is Natasha’s voice.

“I’ll say you were right precisely once and you don’t get to gloat.”

“OK, deal,” Steve says, and feels a stupid smile on his face.  “What’s the report?”

“The Avengers have been ordered to go into Wakanda and seize the entire supply of vibranium.”

“That’s violation of a sovereign country.”

“Yeah.  SHIELD did it all the time, that ‘Nobody but us can be trusted to protect the world from itself’ thing they had going.”  The one he and Natasha had both bought, for a time.  “They were usually a bit more undercover about it, admittedly,” Nat says.  It’s the flippant tone Steve has learned means she’s hurting badly.

“What’s the excuse?”

“Two part.  First, the evidence of stolen vibranium means Wakanda isn’t fit to protect its deposits.  Second, Zemo has presented a plan to fit the world satellite system with vibranium.  He reckons he can incorporate it into the systems in a way that will repel another alien invasion, cause the aliens to burn up when they try to reach Earth.  Tony and Selvig believe it will work.   That’s the key reason why Tony has agreed, he’s convinced we need the vibranium to protect Earth.”

“What does that Wakandan envoy, T’Challa, have to say?”

“Wakanda has always been markedly isolationist, Steve.  It’s being assumed he’ll refuse to hand over the vibranium.”

“So nobody has asked him?”

“Not to my knowledge.  The plan to attack a sovereign country and seize its resources isn’t exactly being advertised, you know.” 

“Can’t imagine it would be.  Natasha, I’m really glad you decided to tell me about this.”

“If you think I’m going to just let you hang up with a few comments on your undying gratitude, Rogers, you can think again.  I made a bad call.  Now I’m trying to make a better one.  Will you trust me to do that?”

“Any time,” Steve says.

They talk a while longer, before Steve asks her to put Maria back on.  He can’t put everything on Nat.

“We can’t tackle this alone.  Do you think you can speak to T’Challa, warn him of what’s about to happen?”

“Leave it to me,” Hill says.

“Be careful.  If I’m right about what’s behind all this, there are people who would kill to keep it going their way.”

“I have been at this a great deal longer than you have, Rogers.”

OK, Steve deserves that.

After he’s ended the call he gets the team together. 

“So,” Sam says.  “The four of us, up against Stark, and whatever else the government can throw.  How do you even get yourself into these things?”

“Takes work,” the Soldier says, and Sam and Wanda both give breaths of laughter.

“Before we go in,” Steve says, “Wakanda does have a history of executing people who enter the country without permission. You’ve all put a lot on the line already.  If any of you chose to drop out now, nobody’s going to think the less.”

“Oh, come on man,” Sam says.  “Nobody’s going to bail just when things are getting interesting.”

A few hours later there’s another call from Natasha.  Steve smiles. 


	19. Tomorrow will march through the door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains mention of character death, but it's one that happens in movie canon

Near the Wakandan border there’s a small hotel, where they wait only a few hours before being joined by Clint, Scott Lang, and a woman Lang introduces as Hope van Dyne.

“Thank you,” Steve says simply to all of them.  It’s warming, in a way that goes far beyond any improving of the odds.  To Scott and Hope he adds, “I’m sure Natasha filled you in on the risks.”

“Opposing Starks is family tradition,” Hope says. 

“And being one of the good guys is pretty addictive,” says Scott. 

“Thought you’d retired,” Wanda says to Clint.

“Call it extended paternity leave.  I think Laura was getting a bit fed up having me underfoot all the time.  Then some people working for Ross started twisting my arm to join Stark’s Avengers.  I don’t react well to threats.”  To the group at large he adds, “There are some presents from Natasha in my luggage.  Since I know nobody wants this to get lethal.  Also, Cap, I’ve got a message from your old flirt, Kate.  Says she’s on stand-by, as are some of her old contacts, and that if there’s any internal word spreading needed she’s up for it.”

So much has happened it takes Steve a few moments to realise who Clint is talking about.  His last contact with Sharon Carter had been a slightly awkward conversation after Peggy’s funeral a few months earlier.  Old contacts he assumes to be former SHIELD agents.  “Thanks,” he says.  “Good to know.”

~~~

Wakanda has tight border controls, but the Soldier was built for this kind of thing, and between his skills and the information relayed from Maria Hill they cross the border at an uninhabited place.  Most of them will stand out like sore thumbs, so avoiding attention is absolutely necessary.  They travel by night. 

“You know,” Wilson says, “I grew up thinking of Wakanda as a myth.  This place in the heart of Africa with amazing technology that nobody ever saw.  Except the people who lived there of course, but I didn’t really believe in them either.  I thought it must have been invented.  But it’s real.”

“I’m not sure how those buildings stay up,” Rogers says.  They’re on a tree covered hill, outside a town.  “The stories about Wakandan technology seem to be understated.”

There’s a part of the Soldier that is unabashedly excited by this, even as a distant viewing, a part that thinks how fascinating this would be to see up close.  There’s another part that thinks it’s going to be ridiculously difficult to get in here unseen.  That prompts him to say, “So how are Team Stark planning to do this.  Because I would not like to try to seize something from a country with tech like this.”

“HYDRA managed it,” says Barton. 

“I’d take a large bet HYDRA have people on the inside.  Every country has people who’d do anything for cash in hand.”

“Yes, which means the best way to stop this would be to plug the leak,” says Rogers.  “I wish we’d been able to get a handle on it.”

“That still leaves the question of how Stark is planning to do it.”

“Tony is used to having the best tech on the block,” Rogers says, “He’s probably counting on that.”

“Or on Vision,” says Wilson. 

~~~

The facility that hold the stocks of vibranium is splendid looking, it glitters with technology and the Soldier hates it on sight, because it is a place built for things and not for people.  He’s good at recognising those.

He hates the set-up here as well, two lots of antagonists, probably both sides will start on them. And they know a damn sight too little about what to expect inside the place, even with everything that Rogers’ contacts could send them.  This is an absolutely terrible idea, but Steve Rogers reckons there is a wrong to be prevented and so they are here to prevent it.  The Soldier feels surge of mixed exasperation and fondness that is utterly terrifying. 

The building is bathed in light at night, a startlingly white glare.  Wanda’s forehead is creased as she frowns.  “I don’t think I can give us long.  There’s going to be so many fail safes and back-ups.  Of course if I got into the minds of the guards….”

“No,” Rogers, says firmly.  “We’ve talked about this.  It’s too hard a road to come back from, you said that.”

“It could be your lives, Steve.”

“It is yours.  Electrics only, Maximoff.  That’s an order.”  For a very wanted fugitive he sounds very authoritative.

“They’ll suspect the minute the lights go out,” Barton says.  “Whole place will be on lock-down.”

“As long as we can still get in,” Rogers says.

“Get in,” says Lang.  “Probably.  If I was still a pro I wouldn’t take this job, because getting in is one thing, but the odds are bad on getting out.”

“We only need to get in.”

“I hope your intelligence is right,” van Dyne comments.  “It will be embarrassing if we are the only ones to show.”

“This is wasting time,” says the Soldier.  “If we’re doing this, we need to go.” Too much talking and they’ll give themselves the jitters. 

Wilson readies the wings.  Lang and van Dyne shrink down, which is a very strange thing to watch.  Wanda places two fingers against her forehead, concentrating.

And the lights go out.

Three minutes, four stun-gunned security guards, and five by-passed systems later they crouch on a walkway, above a loading bay.  The lights are on again.  Below they can see stacked bars, larger than gold.  The Soldier has to keep himself from running flesh fingers down his metal arm.  Vibranium.  Made by the man who had made Steve Roger’s shield.  Well.  Better than not having an arm.

“There’s too little disturbance,” he says, below his breath but he knows Rogers’ hearing will pick it up.  “They were expecting this.”

“Expecting somebody,” Rogers says.  “Might not be us.”

They spread out along the walkway.  It’s too bright up here, too exposed.  It’s a trap, has to be, he has sprung enough of them.  And Rogers knows it as well as he does, and walked right in anyway.  Some people just don’t change. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Peggy is dead in this version. I didn't want to leave her getting ever older but never dying, like Tithonus in Greek myth. I also didn't write her funeral into this story, although I'm glad the movie showed it, because I've written Peggy's funeral once already, and although that story isn't part of this continuity I found that version is too fixed in my mind for me to write another successfully.


	20. We fight, we earn, we never learn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T'Challa is not going to be in this very much, but I enjoyed writing his cameo

It’s smooth, when it happens.  There’s just a brief burst of alarm, cut off, and then the hatch at one end slides open, and one of the sleekest looking vehicles even the Soldier has ever seen comes through it, with Iron Man mounted on the front like some kind of mascot.  He has to give the man credit for style.

There aren’t that many guards on duty, probably just a standard night watch crew, but the way they swing their guns is still too slow, too routine.  They would all have been on alert by now.

“Easy,” Stark says, seriously.  “Nobody needs to get hurt here.  This is a safety measure for the good of the world.”

A woman steps forward, from the ranks of the guards, weapon lowered, confidence in her step.  “Whose world would that be, Iron Man?” she says. 

“There’s only the one,” Stark says.  “Well, only one belonging to humans.  We need it to stay that way.  We can arrange payment later.”

“You really think that’s enough?”  The woman laughed.  “Seize whatever you want, and throw money at the people you stole it from.”

“Nobody has to get hurt,” Stark repeats. 

“How far will you go, Iron Man?  How much force will you use?”

“Does this really need to be so dramatic?  Apparently.  I’ll do what it takes.  Satisfied?”

Of course Rogers chooses that moment to be dramatic himself and drop down from the walkway.  He’s still got his shield slung on his back though.

“Are you listening to yourself, Tony?” he says.  “Seizing whatever you want by force?  We didn’t start the Avengers so they’d become the biggest bullies on the block.”

Stark barely looks surprised.

“Do you have to make this worse, Rogers?  We started the Avengers to safeguard the world.  That’s what I’m doing.”

“No, you’re building a world where might is everything.  Drop this.  Find another way.”

“We haven’t time!”  Stark’s cool is cracking now.  “They are out there.  We are in their sights.  And I will not let your playground scruples stop me from doing what must be done.  Now give yourself up, or get out of the way.  We’re taking what we need.”

“No.  It stops here.”

Armed troops have come through the door behind Stark.  War Machine is at their head.  The Soldier still can’t see Vision.  Black Widow appears from somewhere inside the vehicle and goes to stand beside Steve.

“He’s right.  We should call this off now.”

He could swear there is a flash of real hurt on Stark’s face.  “Once a spy, always a spy.  Shame on me for being fooled.  OK.”

That’s the signal, it seems, as the team behind Iron Man swings into action.  The Soldier raises his gun, hating how easy this is, even though he has Barton’s assurance the charge fired is non-lethal, the weapons supplied by Black Widow specially designed to avoid inflicting any lasting injury.

Nobody is fighting to kill here.   He can tell from the sound the guns Iron Man’s team has brought are no more firing bullets than those of his own side.  That doesn’t mean the stakes aren’t high.

The Soldier stays on the walkway, sniping down.  He doesn’t trust himself in close combat, but then Stark’s troops are swarming along the walkway and he doesn’t have a choice.  It’s a constant fight to hold himself in, to remember these are humans and he wants to cause no lasting damage, he’s pushing them away more than hitting and, despite his speed, taking more than one hit from the stun chargers.   There’s little time to see anyone else, though he spots Rogers using his shield for deflection, not risking throwing it against human flesh.  Barton and Wilson have formed a team on the walkway opposite.  Wanda he is only aware of through the occasional flash of scarlet, until she screams.

It’s shattering, a scream piercing the mind as well as the ears.  It’s right down to the marrow, like his own screams when they put him in the chair.  There is a rush of blind terror, followed by a rush of panic that he will lash out and kill.  Without thought he scrambles over the balustrade and lets himself fall, long training allowing him to make the landing.  As the scream ebbs he finds he’s backed against the wall, everyone is reeling, but Stark’s troops are closing in on him anyway.  His gun won’t fire, so he throws himself to the ground, rolls through the crowd.  He can’t lash out, he’ll kill anyone he strikes right now.  Others are cursing and throwing their own, equally useless, guns aside, it wasn’t just one side affected.  He tries to work himself closer to Wanda, following the direction the screams had come from, but suddenly Stark is there in his path, Stark’s weapons aren’t working either it seems, but his suit is obeying him this time and a man in a metal suit can pack one hell of a punch. He’s fast enough to dodge, but he’s backed into a corner and he can still hear Wanda keening, in his mind and outside it.  Another blow just clips the side of his head, then there’s a clang as Steve’s shield hits Stark right between the shoulders, then Steve tackles Stark at a run from behind, knocking him sideways.

The Soldier tries again to get to Wanda, he can see her now, back against the wall, head up and arms out.  Some of Stark’s people are recovered enough to try to close in on her now.   One of them makes an unwise grab, Wanda throws an arm out and am undirected scarlet burst unbalances the nearest stack of vibranium bars. 

There’s people under the bars, a mixed huddle of Wakandan guards and Stark soldiers who had dealt with Wanda’s scream worse than most.  He curses, throws himself towards the stack, bracing it, puting as much weight as possible on the metal arm.  It’s been carefully arranged, the bars interlocking so they won’t fall apart easily, but it’s teetering, and a single body, however strong, can’t brace enough.  He can think all too well how it will feel when the bars crash down, probably won’t kill him, but he knows how it will hurt, knows he’ll be helpless surrounded by enemies.  But if he moves it will come down for sure, and the people at the foot still haven’t moved.

Then Steve is there, bracing as well, shield slung on his back to help carry the load.  They’re making headway, steadying it, he can see some of Stark’s soldiers forming a loose semi-circle, so if they do get it propped up it seems they’ll have a new set of problems. There’s still some other fighting going on above them, so it seems Wilson, Barton and the shrinking couple are giving Stark’s troops a hard time.  The Wakandans haven’t sided with anyone yet, which that always calculating part of his brain is telling him is a bad sign.

Somehow, straining every muscle, they get the pile balanced.  He’s straightening when he becomes aware, more from atmosphere than anything else, that somebody else has arrived.  Not just another guard or soldier running in, this is somebody people respond to.

“Halt this now!” the voice is strong and authoritative.  The people surrounding do halt, perhaps because with the echoes of Wanda’s scream, now dying to a moan, in their heads, they are grateful for any reason to pause. 

The figure that stalks into the centre of the room is striking by any standards.  The suit he wears has some similarities to Stark’s but it’s black, and the head is shaped like a great feline.  A black panther, the Soldier thinks, and part of him, the part that is curious and moved to wonder, thinks that suit looks pretty amazing.  Behind him is a double line of soldiers in different garb than the ordinary guards in the hallway, outfits that look ceremonial and tough as nails at the same time. 

“This brawling will stop!”  The panther removes his helmet.

“Envoy T’Challa?” Rogers says in a surprised voice.

“Crown Prince T’Challa!” It’s the woman who challenged Stark previously who speaks.  The Wakandans are ducking their heads in a respectful motion that’s almost a half-bow. 

“You,” T’Challa casts his eyes coldly around the group, “have no business here.  This is not your land.”  As he speaks footsteps sound loudly above, more Wakandans, all armed with unusually designed guns, are taking up positions on the walkway, their movements both disciplined and loudly signalled.    The intruders, battered in mind and body, are surrounded and outnumbered.   Of course Stark and Rhodes have their suits, but they’d be unwise to bet against Wakanda having something to match.

“Wakanda does not tolerate such intrusions.”  T’Challa is prowling now, through the midst of the disordered men and women.  If he’d had a tail it would undoubtedly have been lashing, but there’s nothing at all amusing about it.  “We do not need outsiders to save us,” one hand shoots out towards Steve and the claws, actual claws, scrape down the shield Steve has thrown up to protect his body.  There are deep grooves left on the vibranium as T’Challa swings away, towards Stark.  “We will not tolerate thieves taking what is ours.”  Another swing, and this time it’s Stark’s breastplate which has the deep claw marks down it. 

“By the law of Wakanda,” the Panther has paced back to the centre of the room now, “your lives are all forfeit.  But law is not all we must consider.  For all your folly, Avengers,” he makes the name sound like an insult as his gaze flickers between Rogers and Stark, “you are both right in one thing.  There are threats to all of us, both of this earth, and not of it.  For that reason I will speak with you both.  Your companions will be safe here for the moment.”

Rogers squares his shoulders, swings his shield on his back, and gives the Soldier a look which the Soldier can’t quite interpret.  There seems to be some message in it.  As Rogers and Stark file away behind T’Challa the Soldier steps carefully away from the now balanced pile of vibranium bars, raising his eyes to check on the other members of Rogers team.  Barton’s on the upper walkway, he seems alright.  Near him Lang and van Dyne are standing, back to full size.  A quick glance confirms that Wilson, on the ground level, seems uninjured, then with everyone accounted for the Soldier pushes his way over to Wanda.  Some of the Wakandans swing their weapons threateningly towards him, but he has no time for this. 

Wanda is still leaning against the wall, her breath harsh and her eyes unfocused.  He knows this look.  He knows it’s been on himself, when the memories hit too hard, when he pried too deep.  It had almost got him killed or taken a couple of times. 

“Easy,” he says to her.  How did he not remember before he knows Sokovian?  Imperfectly, he’d only needed it once.  There’d been a mission….  No.  He can’t think of that now.  Can’t remember the explosion when the car blew.  “Easy now, Wanda.  What you’re seeing, it isn’t here.   It isn’t here now.  I know it’s bad, but you can handle it.”  He puts his hands out carefully, rests them on her shoulders.   “Come back to us, Wanda.  We need you.” 

Wanda’s breathing is still harsh, but he can tell she’s fighting.  Her eyes hold onto his, and she gasps.  “It’s so powerful.   I don’t know what we can do against it.”

“I am sorry,” a soft voice says at his side.  The Soldier’s head turns.  It’s Vision, looking quite upset.  “I am sorry, Wanda.  I did not intend…”

“You did it to her?”  The metal hand clenches, the flesh one reaches for a knife.  Maybe he can’t kill Vision, but any body made of flesh can be made to hurt.

“I did not intend to hurt her!  Wanda, you are remarkable, you have powers no other human has.  I wanted to show you what I perceive, so you would understand why we must do this.  I did not realise…. Your mind is remarkable, but it is still a human mind.  I fear what I showed overwhelmed you.”

“Now that’s an understatement.”  Wanda is pulling herself together, though she’s still shaking.  She’s switched back to English.  “Next time, give me some warning.”

“What did you see?” Wilson asks quietly.  The Soldier had distantly registered his joining them while he was trying to calm Wanda earlier.

“It wasn’t seeing.  I felt it.  Something so powerful, so filled with… it wants to crush us, like killing a bug.”

“HYDRA?” the Soldiers says, but he knows as soon as the word is out she’s not describing HYDRA.

“No,” Wanda says.  “It’s not part of this world.  It’s outside this world.”

“In space?” says Wilson. 

“Maybe.  I don’t know, but it’s the whole of Earth it wants to destroy.”

“Yes!” Vision says.  “The whole of Earth.  That is why we must have protection.  Mr Stark understands, so does the Baron.”

“Zemo,” Wilson says.  “Was this Zemo’s idea?”


	21. What if I’ll never discern

There are two guards following Steve and Stark as they are shown into an office like space to one side of the hangar.  Steve is planning on letting T’Challa open things, but of course Stark has to talk. 

“So.  Very impressive set up here.   I admit I might have slightly underestimated Wakanda’s capacity for self-protection, I thought a lot of it was gossip and propaganda to be honest.”

“It is useful,” T’Challa says, “to have nobody know exactly how strong you are.”

“Well, another time I’d love to talk technology, but I’m guessing now isn’t the moment.  So I will say instead that if you execute us there will be one hell of a stink.”

“I said your lives are forfeit, not that the forfeit will be extracted.  Would it interest you to know how we knew of your arrival?”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” Steve says, and turns to Stark.  “I sent a message to the envoy.”

“You did,” T’Challa agreed.  “You were not the only one.  In fact there was quite a queue of people eager to tell me.”  His teeth flash in a smile.  “I investigated.  It wasn’t too hard, a remarkable number of people seem to believe that because Wakanda is isolationist we must be naïve.  Although Captain Rogers’ associate was honest about the source others were not.  I was able to trace at least one report to Helmut Zemo.”

“Zemo?” Stark repeats.  “No, you must be wrong.  Why would Zemo do that.”

“You’re admitting Zemo knew then,” Steve says.  “In fact I’d guess he was one of the ones who pushed for this.”

Stark’s chin juts out.  “I’m not dodging my part in deciding this.  I’m not apologising either.  We need that vibranium.  If the world falls, Wakanda will fall with it.”

“And if Wakanda falls now, then it will be possible not only to seize the vibranium already mined, but to take over the entire mining operation.” Steve turns to T’Challa.  “That’s why Zemo tipped you off.  If you execute us, he will be able to whip up enough outrage to tear Wakanda apart.”

“Zemo would not find us so easily torn.  I don’t doubt that was his reason, however.  He rids himself of those who might prove headstrong in future, and provides an excuse for conquering Wakanda.  Quite clever.”

“Are you sure it was Zemo?” Stark sounds half-angry, half-uneasy. 

“See for yourself,” T’Challa passes over a tablet.  Steve can’t see what is on it, but he sees the sickly shade that comes over Tony’s face, until at last he puts the tablet down and says bitterly, “Hell.  I liked him.”

“Is Zemo HYDRA?” Steve says to T’Challa.

“Perhaps.  I am concerned with his actions, not whether he belongs to a secret society.  I have a message for you concerning him, however, your contact gave it to me.  From the dead man, she said.”

Steve knows too many dead men.  A surprising number could have written to him recently.  But this is from Fury, he knows as soon as he opens it sees the private mark Fury uses for things like this instead of a signature.  And Peggy had called Steve dramatic. 

“So, you going to share?” Stark says impatiently. 

“Fury’s got Zemo linked to Alaska,” Steve says.  “That’s where the stolen vibranium goes, we were able to confirm that in Nigeria.  He’s behind the vibranium thefts.  Do you still think he isn’t HYDRA?”

Tony looks like he’s about to say something angry, but then he checks.  “Still believing your old war buddy’s story?” 

“Every step has checked out,” Steve says.  “The vibranium trail, Zemo being behind the thefts.  Now we know he set your team up to be killed.  If he’s not HYDRA what is he?”

“Doesn’t matter, I guess,” Tony says.  “Whatever he is, he’s been yanking us around.  I still think you are flat-out wrong about a whole bunch of things, but there’s one we might actually agree on.  I am really tired of being yanked around.  I want him to pay.”   He turns to T’Challa, “But I still want the vibranium.”

“We will not yield to demands,” T’Challa says flatly.  “But I am prepared to negotiate.”

Voices are raised outside, “I must speak to them, I must tell them!”  Steve gets up, ignoring T’Challa’s guards, and pulls the door open.  Wanda comes through, pulling Vision by the hand.

“I want you to know,” she says directly to T’Challa, “that I do not approve of anything that man has done.  But he is right about the threat to our world.  Vision has felt it.  I have felt it.  There is something out there that will destroy us.”  She turns to Tony.  “The weapons you peddled to fill your bank account killed my parents.  Your stupidity and arrogance destroyed my country, murdered thousands who lived there.   But I will work with you, if it is what needs to be done, if it is the way to save the Earth.”

T’Challa is looking at Wanda with profound interest.  “You are a seer?”

“I don’t see the future,” Wanda swallowed.  “I feel minds.  This mind is huge.”

“That is true,” Vision says, speaking for the first time.  “I have felt it also.  Not malice, not precisely.  But relentless.  And strong.  Very, very strong.”

“I am not blind to the threats this world faces,” T’Challa says.  “It was no chance that we decided to end our isolation after the invasion of America.   We can reach an agreement regarding the vibranium.  But we must deal with the enemy to hand first.”

“You understand,” Steve says, “that Zemo could not have seized your vibranium without co-operation within Wakanda?”

“Indeed I do.  That is a Wakandan matter.  Zemo, however is the concern of all of us.  Part of the price, if you want our vibranium, is that I accompany you to deal with him.”

“I’m guessing this,” Stark points to the suit, “isn’t purely ceremonial.”

“This is the garb of the Black Panther, the guardian of my people.  You will not find my presence a liability, Iron Man.”

“So, I guess we’re going to Alaska.”  Tony stands up.  “That could have gone worse.”

Steve waits until they are outside before he says, “One thing more, Stark.  Who has been starting a hunt against members of my team?”

“Nobody from the Avengers,” Stark says.  “Don’t pretend you had any similar scruples.”

The Ultron leak.  “If you really didn’t know about the leaks against my team, then I’m sorry.  But I couldn’t let them take Wanda.  They’d have had her strapped to a table.”

Stark makes a derisive sound.  “You going to claim none of this was for your old pal?”

Steve struggles a moment to find the right answer, then realises it’s simple.  “No, I’m not going to claim that.  He doesn’t deserve to be strapped to a table either.”

“I don’t forgive him,” Tony says, harshly.  “I’m not going to make nice.  But I’m not going Inigo Montoya on him either.  I know he was only the weapon.  And I admit I overshared some things with Zemo.  Look, Cap, when this is done-”

“We’ll still be outlaws.  I know.”

“I’ll work on that.  If you’re right about Zemo though….”  Stark looks extremely tired.  “The Government will probably unfriend me.”

“Thought they already had.”  Steve tries to be light, but it doesn’t quite come out that way.

“I was working on it.”

~~~

There are guards following, making it clear they are, if not prisoners, not welcome guests.  Steve finds he doesn’t much care. 

Wanda and Vision have made it back to the scene of the fight ahead of them.  It’s been cleared up now, and he can see Sam and Rhodey, evidently mending fences, Scott and Hope chatting with some of Tony’s soldiers. 

Natasha is talking to Clint, but she breaks off and comes over.  “Did you bury the hatchet?”

“I think we put it back in the toolshed.”  Steve looks round again, at the men lining the walkway.  “I may have been wrong, charging in here, like it was up to me to save Wakanda.  They could have saved themselves quite well.”

“Yes, they could,” Nat agrees.  “At least you got to put the hatchet away.  So, we going on vacation next?”

“Only if Alaska is your idea of a dream holiday.”

“I’ll pack my snow boots.”


	22. The future's in our hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... things are starting to look up for the characters. Everyone who is still reading, many thanks for your cmments and your kudos

The accommodation they are shown to is probably attached to the mining site.  The rooms are plain, although the lighting is unusual, with no source. 

Wakanda is pretty amazing, even the little the Soldier has seen, but he is tired, and has the feeling of being at the beginning of an end.  Things were getting wrapped up, and then what?  He hopes things work out OK for the others, for him probably the best that can be hoped for is a chance to run again.  Still, if Alaska turns out to be their last time working together at least they can hope to do some serious damage to HYDRA. 

Wanda seems OK, and insisted he shouldn’t be angry with Vision.  He hasn’t seen Rogers since the end of the fight, although there had been a short, tense confrontation with Stark. 

“I want you to know,” Stark had said, “James Barnes may have been everything Rogers thinks, but I don’t believe you are him.   Maybe you do hate HYDRA, well, that’s fine, everybody hates HYDRA.  But you are still a killer, and I don’t trust you as far as I could throw the Hulk without the suit.  You betray us, and I will bury you.”

“Reverse holds too,” he’d said in answer.  He doesn’t object to Stark hating him, the man is entitled.  But his loyalty is to those he’s run with for the last few weeks.  It’s an oddly warming thought to know he has loyalties now.

After finishing his usual exercises he knows he’s too keyed up for sleep, so he builds card houses for a while.  The metal arm, as ever, is steady as a rock.  It’s no credit to him really, but there’s a strange pride in getting every card in the pack on his house.  He’s just finished another when Rogers shows up. 

“So, will you be coming with us?”

The Soldier snorts, “That’s a dumb question.”

“Good.”  When he speaks again it is oddly deliberate.  “Do you remember when – ”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Soldier interrupts.  “Whatever I remember.  It doesn’t make a difference.”

“You’re very quick to argue that.  I could have been talking about last week.  What is there to be afraid of, in remembering?”

“Rogers.   We’ve done this.”

“If you don’t want me to call you Bucky, I won’t.  But I’m not seeing some ghost when I look at you.  I’m seeing the man who got through to Wanda when nobody else could.  The man who in the middle of a fight stopped to rescue those who couldn’t help themselves.  I’m not seeing Bucky in you because I want to.  I’m seeing what’s there.”

“You didn’t before.”

“All I was seeing before was the damned file.  What HYDRA did…. I didn’t think anyone could have survived that.”

“He didn’t,” the Soldier whispered.

“The parts that mattered the most did.”

“No.  How can you say that?  I nearly killed you.”

“That was HYDRA.  You weren’t in control.”

“You know what the orders were on that last mission?  Not to kill you.  Just to stop you getting to the central console.  I’d already failed my mission at the end.  Hitting you, after you’d helped me out from under that beam, saved me, that was all my doing.  I wasn’t completing my mission I was just trying to make you stop talking.  Because the things you were saying… I didn’t want them.  If you were good, if we were friends, it meant what I’d been doing was bad and wrong.  That I was the villain, the monster.  They made me feel I was right.  I nearly killed you for telling me I was wrong.  That’s all.  That was me, that was all me.”

“You weren’t in your right mind,” Steve says, pleading, so sure.  “For crying out loud, you’d been tortured for seventy years, Buck- ”

“No!”

“Alright, but what should I call you, you won’t pick a name!  It won’t matter, you can call yourself what you like, I’ll still see you.  See the guy who always reminded me what was really important. “

“You can’t, you can’t.”  He wants Rogers’ friendship, and more than friendship, there is a crackle in the room between them now.  He can’t take the inheritance of a dead man.   He has to make Steve see.

“Don’t tell me what’s in my head,” Steve says. “If you want to be someone new, that’s OK, that’s your choice, this is your life it’s not about me.  But you shouldn’t see yourself as lesser.  After everything they did, that you’re standing is amazing.  That you still care, you still try to help.  I **admire** that, I admire you.”

“I’m an insult to your Bucky,” the Soldier snaps angrily.  “An abomination.  You have to see that.”

“I know what I see.” Rogers says, taking a step forward.

The Soldier kisses him.  It’s not planned, it’s an impulse, a stratagem to push Rogers away.  He’ll know, when he feels the mouth of a metal-armed monstrosity, he’ll be repelled then and he’ll let this drop. 

He hadn’t counted on his own body’s reaction.  He has Bucky’s memories of kissing Steve Roger’s but the knowledge of how it felt was faded.  This is an explosion of sensation, catching him utterly off guard.  He hadn’t known it would be like this.

And Steve isn’t stopping, he’s deepening the kiss, one hand coming up to rest against an unshaven cheek.  It feels so right.

He pulls back, at last, breath uneven.  Steve is smiling, a funny, soft smile. 

“You kiss just the same as you used to.”

“Rogers…” This was not part of the plan.

“If this was to try and push me away it’s not working.”  That much is obvious.  The Soldier, the man, whoever he is, finds he can’t think very clearly. His brain feels oddly shorted out, but not in a bad way. 

Steve leans in, “Tell me if you don’t want this.  Because I want it.  With **you**.”

Their lips meet again and something breaks, bodily memory crashing in, along with desperation and longing to just feel good, and this is Steve.  So many Steves in his mind, overlaid. 

He grabs for Steve’s shoulders, and then their hands are all over each other.  It’s wild, rough and desperate, both of them holding on as if they are clutching at life itself.  There’s no holding back, no thought, just untrammelled sensation.

“I don’t care,” Steve says afterwards, their bodies still tangled, Steve nuzzling into the join between flesh and metal at his shoulder.  He can’t bring himself to pull away, it feels so good.  “I don’t care who you think you are, or what you want to be called.  I love you.”

“You never said that before,” he blurts.  This is a great time to lose the filter between mouth and brain. 

“I should have said it then.  That’s why I’m not missing the chance to say it now.  And I’m not missing the chance to tell you I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For giving up on you.  Twice.  When you fell from the train, when I saw that file.  I gave up and left you.  I didn’t think anyone could have survived.  I was wrong.  You could, you did.  Strongest, stubbornest person I ever knew.”

He still can’t let go.  The feel of Steve so close, the feel of being wanted, of being able to give.  But he can make himself speak.

“You want me to be him, even if you say you don’t.   You’re asking a lot.  Your friend Bucky, would you want him to have to live with being me?  With everything I’ve done.”

“How often do I have to say that wasn’t your fault?” Steve’s hand is cupping the joint between shoulder and neck now.  “The things they did to you.  Anyone would have…”

“No.  No, you wouldn’t.  You would have found a way to die.”  He’s bald certain of this.  “There were times when I knew, when I understood.   Not everything, but enough.  But I didn’t fight, because there were so many guns, and I was afraid of the bullets.”  Phantom pain in his flesh, from the times he did fight.  Before the fear won.  “If I’d kept on, if I’d fought, I could have made them kill me sooner or later.”   He’d wanted life, hellish though it was, he’d wanted it.  Bucky had too.  The fatal flaw HYDRA had exploited.

“You think I’m going to damn you for surviving?”  Steve says, incredulously.

“Other people died because I wanted to live.  You wouldn’t have let that happen.  He, Bucky, he used to think you were too damn quick to try and lay your life down.  But I get it now.  Not wanting to live on, knowing you might have saved other lives if you died.  I just got it too late.”

He hadn’t expected Steve to sag, as if his body was suddenly very heavy.  “As someone who has tried both living and dying, living can sometimes be a lot tougher.  You’re still doing it.  I think that’s amazing.”

“Steve…”  He has thought of it before.  That Steve too had lost so much.  But now, he feels in, in a way he hadn’t until now.  “I’m so sorry,” he says.  “You should have had your happily ever after with Peggy Carter.”

“I’m a lot better now.  Being in this time I got to meet Sam and Wanda and Nat.  And I found you.  Peggy had a great life without me, you know.  She showed me, you don’t just get one chance at being happy.”  He shifts a little, hands still on skin.  “Do you mind if I stay?”

“No.  I’d like it.”

~~~

He lies awake all the same.   Because this wasn’t an answer. 

Taking on being Bucky meant taking on everything Bucky had lost.  For The Asset there was nowhere to go but up, nothing that wasn’t gain.  Bucky Barnes was all loss.  Loss of the family he’d loved so much.  Loss of his self, of everything he’d ever accomplished.  Loss of his soul, for want of a better word.   Could he bear to take that on?  To live as someone who had fallen so far, and could never climb more than a fraction of the way back up.  Who had lost his battles irretrievably, and would be forever stamped with the defeat.

Perhaps the more important question was whether the man HYDRA had tortured out of existence in that damned lab at Lehigh would want to live again if he could.  To live, even with the weight of the Asset’s crimes on his shoulders.  To live with all he had lost and could never get back.  To live with the memories?

He already answered that question, hadn’t he?  Bucky Barnes always wanted to live. 

It was going to hurt, bearing all that HYDRA had ripped away.  Facing the thought, he felt more tired than anything else.  But it would be a coward’s act not to try.


	23. From the last to the first

Steve wakes early and for a moment can’t figure out why somebody is in bed with him.  He hadn’t had a one night stand in a while, and they hadn’t usually meant falling asleep together anyway.  He tries to shift, as carefully as possible, to see who it is, and earns a mumbled, “Stop fidgeting, Steve.”

 _Bucky_.  For a second Steve is certain he’s dreaming, and dreads waking up.  Then he manages to twist his shoulders enough to see properly.  Bucky, with long hair not completely hiding the lines that weren’t there in the war.

 _It’s him._   It is him.  Steve won’t ever doubt that again, even if he has to call him something ridiculous for the rest of their lives he will.  If he can spend the rest of his life making it up to Bucky for giving up on him, twice, he will. 

In the same moment he’s vowing that, Bucky wakes up properly.  It’s not a tranquil waking, Steve sees him freeze up with tension, then will himself into a stillness that is not relaxed.

“Sleep well?” Steve says, trying to keep things normal.  Well, at a passable pretence of normal anyway. 

“Well enough.”  The look he gives Steve is and isn’t the Bucky he remembers.  He can see the shadow of the look Bucky always wore when screwing himself up to something, but it’s muted, overlaid with a hardness, a taut control he didn’t remember.  It’s very difficult not to break into a ridiculous grin at the thought of all the time he will have to learn this new Bucky.

“I’ll try it,” Bucky says, with a rush of words faster than anything Steve has heard in this century.

“Try what?” Steve says, honestly puzzled.  “That Wakandan alcohol Sam and Clint were drinking last night?”  He’s sure it’s not that, but doesn’t want to blunder into wrong assumptions.

“Being Bucky.  I may not be very good at it, but I’ll try.”

“Don’t make it sound like a test,” Steve says.  “You don’t have to try to be a certain way to please me.”

“I’m not.  This is for me.  But it’s gonna be hard, don’t say it won’t.”

Steve bites back the protest he’s been about to make, and says carefully, “Hard never puts you off.  Not before and not now.   Does this mean I can call you Bucky?”

“Yeah,”  Bucky’s smile is a bit tentative, a bit cautious, but it’s warm all the same.  “Yeah, Steve.  You can.”

Steve runs through half a dozen different ways of trying to explain to his friends the decision Bucky has reached, and settles for playing it casual.  When all the Avengers are gathered for breakfast in a military style canteen he pads over to the coffee dispenser, and says in deliberately carrying tones, “Can I fetch you a coffee, Bucky?”

The room goes silent.  It’s Natasha who says it.  “Bucky?”  It’s only half a question in her voice.

“Yes,” Steve says firmly.

Wanda pushes back her chair, goes straight to Bucky and hugs him, fiercely.  “I’m so glad,” Steve hears her say, and he could have hugged her just as hard.

Sam surprises him by holding a hand out.  “Sam Wilson.  I like birds, and can be bribed with cookies.”

“I’ll remember,” Bucky says.

The others are more low key about it, apart from Scott who, after pestering Sam for an explanation, starts pestering Bucky for his autograph.  He gets it eventually.  Rhodey comes up, and congratulates Steve after.  He seems sincerely, and any remaining animosity Steve had felt towards him melts away.  Tony, though, doesn’t say anything to either Bucky or Steve.  His face is hard, almost stiff.  Not his usual look.  Steve gives him an equally hard look back.  He’s not backing down now. 

Tony surprises him though, when he cuts Steve out of the group before they can leave. 

“I know my dad made your buddy’s cyber arm,” he says, almost belligerently.  “Found the file.”

“Tony, I’m sorry,” Steve finds himself saying.

“He never knew about HYDRA,” Tony says, “I’ll swear that.  I mean we got on like fire and gasoline, but he never would have…  Did you know he was Jewish?  For a given value of Jewish, I mean he was an atheist and didn’t practice any of the culture.  But he started out as a Jewish kid from the East Side.”

“I guessed,” Steve says.  “Howard never told me, but once I heard Erskine say something in Yiddish and Howard choked back a laugh.”

“Ana used to do that to him sometimes, when I was a kid.  Ana Jarvis.  Did you … no, Ana told me she never met you.  He may have Gatsbyed himself, but he didn’t forget.  I know he let Zola in, but I’ll never believe he knew Zola was still HYDRA.”

“Tony, for whatever it’s worth I never thought that he knew.  Howard, the Howard I knew, he just got caught up too much sometimes in whether a thing could be done to think about whether it should.”

“Yeah, Pep always says that’s one of my problems.”

~~~

The fugitive team fly out separately, on a Wakandan aircraft, with cloaking technology that will probably make Tony drool.  They are hoping HYDRA will be misled into thinking the Avengers are still divided.    Wanda and Sam sleep through most of the flight.  Steve doesn’t enjoy the being in the air any more than he ever does, but this time he accepts Bucky’s offer of a game of cards.  It helps, even if he’s still more interested in the pictures than the game itself. 

“I’ve seen Leonardo’s Last Supper now,” he says.

“You have?  How was it?  I mean, how well had it survived?”

It had been covered in sandbags when the Howling Commandos passed through Milan.  It had been a near miracle the wall had survived the Allied bombings of the city, when so much of the monastery in which it stood had been destroyed.  Steve had been eaten up with fear the fresco would be consumed by mould. 

“It’s still there.  There’s been a lot of restoration work.  I knew more or less what to expect, looked it up on the internet so as not to be disappointed.    They reckon more damage was done by bad restoration attempts over the years than by the bombs, you know.”

“But it’s still there,” Bucky says. 

 “It is.”  Steve stares at a card for a bit.  “Bucky.”  It gives him a thrill to be able to say that.

“Yeah.” There’s a pause before Bucky answers, as if he isn’t used to hearing his name yet.  But he does answer. 

“When we’ve dealt with Zemo, we need to clear your name.”

“What?”  Bucky looks at him as if he’s just started talking gobbledegook. 

“We need to make it plain none of what HYDRA did was your fault.  Now this smear campaign people have been running won’t make things any easier, but if we can get it out you’re with the Avengers now that should help.  Nobody was going to arrest Natasha after the pictures of her fighting aliens in New York.  And Natasha didn’t have a reputation like yours to fall back on.”

“You’re losing me.  How does the Winter Soldier’s reputation help?”

“I meant your reputation from the war.”

“No!”

“What?” Steve says confused.

“I don’t want it coming out that I was him.  Bucky, I mean.”  Steve winces internally that Bucky has just referred to himself in the third person again, but holds back from saying anything.  “I don’t want…   Let him keep his reputation.  It’s the only thing that was left.”

“Bucky.  We’ve been over this.  None of what they did was your fault.  You won.  They couldn’t destroy you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not how the rest of the world’s going to see it.  They’re not going to acquit me.  Probably won’t acquit Wanda either.  We’ll just have to deal with it.  But I don’t want Becca dragged into this.”  Steve, already opening his mouth to marshal arguments, closes it again.  “They would.  The press wouldn’t let up, hunting her down to demand how she feels about her brother the traitor.  And her kids, and Lizzie’s.  It’s not right to put them through that.”

Damn.  He’s not wrong about the press. 

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky says, and that’s a voice Steve’s hardly ever heard directed at him.  “Don’t you do that to them.”

~~~

They end up meeting their core allies at a warehouse.  “Hello, Kate,” Steve greets Sharon.  He’s forgiven the deception, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have some fun with it. 

“Captain,” Sharon replies, with an ironic quirk.  Hill’s already there, and gives Steve a quiet nod.  He understands she’s saying that now is not the time to thank her for her help.  He’ll do that later.  For now there’s barely time to introduce van Dyne (whose comments suggest she’s itching to start cross-examining both Sharon and Hill about their connections, she’s evidently not a very trusting person which means she and Hill will probably end up with a lot of mutual respect) and Lang as they wait for the rest of the briefing party. 

Fury makes one of his dramatic entrances, with Natasha a pace to the side, and Bucky has a gun levelled at him faster than anyone can blink. 


	24. Your blood on me, and my blood on you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: I honestly really like Nick Fury, but he operates in a very grey moral area - something he doesn't deny - and I enjoy exploring just how grey that area gets, hence the start of this chapter

Steve feels as if the air has frozen around him as fast as the ice in the cockpit of the Valkyrie.  Why Fury, why Fury?  The HYDRA programming hadn’t been triggered by Steve or Natasha.  He needed, to act, knock the gun away, do something.  Bucky would be devastated if HYDRA forced him to kill again.

“Steve!” Wanda was by his side.  “Steve, easy now.  You’re freaking out.”  Bucky’s gun hand didn’t waver in the slightest.

“Help **him** ,” Steve managed to choke out. 

“Steve, I don’t think this is programming.”

“Damn right,” Bucky says, in that scary monotone he has.  “You know who this guy is?”

“He’s on our side.”  Natasha is standing with a stillness that screams danger, and panic starts to close on Steve again, because what if she takes Bucky out? 

“Romanoff,” Bucky says, still in that dead voice.  “You will remember Odessa.  Do you know who briefed me before that mission?”

“Odessa.”  Steve’s eyes move to Nat.  “Were you with SHIELD in Odessa?”

“I freelanced for a couple of years after I got away from the Red Room.  Odessa was the last time.  Clint found me bleeding out, brought me in.”

“I was on clean up duty,” Barton says, from behind Steve.  “Wasn’t briefed on who I was cleaning up after.”

The ice cracks into razor shards.  Steve’s feet take him forward to barely two feet from Fury.  He takes care not to block Bucky’s shot. 

“You said you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know the Winter Soldier was James Barnes.”  Fury is standing quite motionless.  It’s possible Steve has never seen him quite so tense, even in a dim apartment right before the Winter Soldier shot him through a wall.  “The file said William Harrison Hendricks.  A Death Row inmate, who volunteered for the procedure, and was left brain damaged by it.”

The anger spins out and out, sharp as diamond, but his anger isn’t what is important.  He turns to Bucky, steps between him and Fury, not quite blocking the shot.

“OK,” he says.  “OK, if you want to kill him, I won’t put you on trial.  Though there are others here who might try.  But is it going to help?  One more death?  If you want to ever stop, you have to start somewhere.  Why not here?”  And he steps back, away from Fury, leaving the shot completely clear. 

He had thought someone else might intervene.  Natasha at least.  But they stay silent, so everybody hears it when Bucky clicks the safety catch back on.

“What the hell.  I’ve already shot you once.”

“Three times,” Fury says.

“All three hit?  I couldn’t see through the wall.”   He holsters the gun, making a deliberate point of it.

“You shot him through the wall?” Barton says.

“Used Rogers’ line of sight as reference.”

“I’m seriously impressed.”

“OK,” Sam says, breaking tension that’s still thick enough to cut, “You can swop assassin stories some other time.  We have a raid to plan.”

~~~

Bucky spends over an hour checking his weaponry, some of it new and supplied by T’Challa.  He needs to be absolutely familiar with it before going into battle.  Then he checks his arm, in the same way.  HYDRA had trained him to keep it in good condition in the field, and he’d picked up more from watching technicians and, later, reading stolen files.  Keeping it in condition has been a practical point, like maintaining his other equipment.  He needs it; whether he wants it is irrelevant.  Now though, he finds himself looking at the arm in a different light.  It’s not responsible for the way HYDRA used it.  He can use it in better ways now, and not just to fight HYDRA.  He’s used it to patch Steve’s injuries, play cards with Wanda, do basic cooking for all of them in that African bunker.  He can make it an arm, not just a weapon.  Perhaps, and he knows that it’s foolish to think this way about an inanimate object, perhaps the arm deserves it.

“Did Peggy ever brief you?”  Steve says, after he joins Bucky.  They are sharing a room again, by unspoken agreement.

“No.  Signed off on some of the missions, I found the records.    Broke into that repository where they were keeping all the stuff salvaged from the Triskelion basement.  She bought the William Hendricks story, I expect.”

“How many missions were SHIELD?”

 “I don’t have a count.  Not all.  Howard Stark wasn’t.”

“No. Of course not.”

It’s a difficult subject.  He will at least give Fury credit for not being too squeamish to brief his murder puppet in person.  But if Steve wants to see things differently he won’t take that away.

There is a slightly awkward silence as Steve slides into the bed beside him, and he wonders uneasily if this is a mistake, if they can rebuild true intimacy now the first raw passion has ebbed.  But Steve’s hands on his body feel good enough to quiet most of the worries, and he reaches back with his flesh hand, keeping the cold metal one away from Steve’s skin.

“I sometimes wonder,” Steve says abruptly, “If I’d made it back to the States after the war. I’d probably have wound up working for SHIELD.  Would I have… would I have ended up agreeing with SHIELD?  Would I have agreed to William Harrison Hendricks?”

“No!”  It comes out with a jolt.  “Not you, never you.”

“I’m not so sure.  When I found out about Project Insight, I was shocked, but I didn’t resign.  I spent hours thinking about whether I should, circling round things.  Talking to Sam, going to see Peggy, I even asked Sharon for a coffee just to avoid thinking about it.  I never decided.  I still don’t know what I would have decided.  And it wasn’t that Fury convinced me.  It was pure cowardice.  I was afraid if I quit I wouldn’t have anything.  I wouldn’t be anything.”

“You’ll always be something.”  He rubs circles on Steve’s back trying to convey certainty through touch.  “And you would have done the right thing.”

“I hope so.  Sometimes I think… what Wanda showed me.  The worst fear.  I think it may have been what would have happened to me if I hadn’t crashed that plane.”

“Well, you’re being stupid then.  It would never have happened to you.”

Since they are talking might-have-beens though, there is one lying raw between them. 

“Steve.  Why didn’t you look for me?”  He feels Steve tense up, and almost regrets the question.  But they need to get this out.

“I never thought you could have survived.  I thought I’d be asking men to risk their lives to bring back a corpse.  And we needed to get Zola back to London for interrogation.”

“I read about that.  You only just got to Schmidt’s plane in time, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Then it’s better you didn’t look.”  He thinks of the plane headed for New York, thinks of friends, the people passed every day in the street, the familiar faces that would have died.  He thinks of the strangers that died at his hand.  It’s twisted to even try to weigh out a balance, but however much it damns him he knows which he would chose.

“I can’t…” Steve’s voice chokes, “I’ll never forgive myself that I didn’t… I just went bullheaded after HYDRA looking for revenge and it was all for nothing in the end.”

“No, it damn well wasn’t,” Bucky snaps.  “You didn’t wipe out HYDRA, but you saved thousands of lives.  That’s not nothing, Steve, don’t talk stupid.”

“Still, I should have… got a team together to send, done something.  I should have guessed what Zola had done to you.”

“You think I hadn’t?  I should have told you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He closes his eyes.  He owes Steve this

“I thought they’d send me back to a lab in the states, if they knew.  I didn’t think you’d turn me in, but it didn’t seem fair, asking you to keep something like that from Carter and Stark, when you had so much on you already.  And I didn’t know just what the hell Zola had stuck in me.  Kept seeing Red Skull tear his face off, and thinking I’d go the same way.” 

Steve’s hands, which have been gently roaming his body, grow still, but he doesn’t withdraw them, instead pressing his palms down, as if in support.

“You know, Buck,” he says after a pause.  “I don’t think even Erskine really understood that serum.  After I saw Red Skull I thought I understood what he meant about bad becoming worse.  But I’ve been thinking a lot, and the serum didn’t make me a better or worse person, it just made my body work better.   I think the serum gives people what they want.  Schmidt wanted to be something that wasn’t human.  I wanted to be big, and to look like what people think a hero looks like.  You just wanted to stay you.”

“Didn’t turn out so well.”

“You were tortured!  Of course that’s going to change someone.   After everything they did, I still can’t believe how much of the old you is still here.  I could put that down to the serum, but you know what, Buck.  I think it’s you.”

They make love again that night.  It’s not like Wakanda, wild and desperate, but there’s still an edge to it amidst the pleasure.  There’s still a lot to learn with their present bodies, but this is good.  More than good. 

Afterwards Steve rolls over, propping himself up on an elbow, his hair sticking out all ways.

“There’s something I want you to know, before tomorrow.  I was going to choose you.”

“What do you mean?”

  “In the war.  I realised, just before we got on that damn train.  I couldn’t be with Peggy and keep what we had.  I chose you.  If you’d have me.  I was going to tell you, after the Zola mission.”

“We couldn’t have –”

“I’d thought about it,” Steve says.  “I thought we could move to France, where it wasn’t illegal.  You were really good with the language, and I could have learned.  We could have found jobs, and if anyone wanted to go digging dirt, then let them.”

Bucky stares, “You would have… You would have given up being Captain America?”

“Captain America was only ever supposed to last as long as the war,” Steve says.   “At least, that’s what I thought at first.  The SSR might have had other ideas.  But yes, I would have given it up.  Then, now.  Captain America isn’t anything next to you.”

“Agent Carter…” 

“Peggy was better off without me.  There wasn’t enough of my heart you didn’t have to be worth giving to her.  I didn’t mean to lead her on, but she was too smart to let me hold her back.”

“Steve.  I can’t let you….  There’s never going to be a pardon or an acquittal for me.”

“I don’t care.  No, that’s selfish.  I care for you, I’ll fight for you, but if they make you spend the rest of your life on the run it makes no difference to me.” 

It’s overwhelming.  He can think of all the reasons why he shouldn’t take this, should push Steve away.  He knows he’s not going to. 

If he’d thought about it, he’d have expected to find sleeping in the same bed impossible, but pressed against Steve he sleeps better than he can ever remember. 

~~~

In the morning they dress for battle.  It feels oddly familiar, like so many times in the war. 

Bucky turns over the knife Steve had returned on that train in France, the one he had liked to wrap his hand around to sleep.  He remembers having a knife just like that in the war, less worn in the blade but the same notched handle.  He’d surely had it on him when he fell.  Had one thing followed him through the years, or had some muscle memory caused him to mark this one the same way? Regardless he slips it onto his belt. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Steve says.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well,” Steve says ruefully, “I had to say it.”  He pauses, picks up the shield, then puts it down again.  “Did you ever consider just stopping?   You could have taken your false ID and just gone and, I don’t know, done whatever you wanted.”

“What would I want to do?”

“Whatever you wanted,” Steve says again.  “Was all this just because you couldn’t imagine anything else?”

“I didn’t think there could be anything else.”  That there might be, that that’s even a chance for him, is an idea he’s still getting used to.  That the future, however difficult, might have Steve and Wanda and Sam Wilson and maybe others in it.  But that hadn’t been all.

“The things they did,” he says.  “When I understood it.  It was wrong.  It needed stopping.  Who better than me?  You see that.  I know you do.”

“Yes,” Steve says.  “But…  Buck, I have to ask.  In the war, when I asked you to go back and fight, did you say yes just for me.”

He thinks back.  It’s so long ago.

“Not just for you,” he says at last.  No.  Bucky had always hated bullies as well.


	25. So many stories to tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this story was begun before Civil War came out, the Zemo in this chapter is very different from his movie counterpart.

They assemble promptly, the four of them who had run together for so long, together with Hill and Sharon Carter.  Fury hasn’t shown yet, but he’ll be there.

“When do we move?” Wilson asks.  The plan is for their party to hit the base first, then for Stark’s team and the Wakandan strike force to come in, with Fury and Hill co-ordinating.  The hope is that Zemo’s people will expect the Avengers will still be fractured and assume Stark’s team is pursuing them rather than helping them.  Sharon Carter has been in contact with local law enforcement, but they are only intended to be involved in the clean up.

“There’s a problem,” Hill says grimly. 

“OK, shoot,” Steve says. 

“Emergency shutdown.  Word has gone out that you are attempting a coup against the US Government.  The entire country is in a state of high alert, and civilian flights into Alaska have been suspended.”

“Well, that’s going to make Zemo popular,” Wilson says.

“Do the public know he’s behind it?” Steve asks.  He’s got his firm jawed Captain’s look again, the one Bucky used to joke was pointed at an invisible camera. 

“No,” Hill says.  “It’s simply going out as a government announcement.”

“Civilian flights being suspended shouldn’t stop Stark and the Wakandans though,” says Wilson.

“Turns out that’s not the limits though,” says Hill.

Sharon Carter – Bucky will have to think of her as Sharon, ‘Agent Carter’ is far too confusing – Sharon looks up from the screen she’s working on.

“That’s not the limit of our problems.  I’m just trying to get a proper connection now, or rather Tony Stark is trying to get the connection working and I’m working on receiving him.”

“Communications cut as well?” Bucky says. 

The screen makes a high pitched whine, then Tony Stark’s voice breaks through.   “Are you receiving?  Damn, I feel like I’m in an old time movie here, are you receiving me?”

“We can hear you, Tony.” Steve says.

“Right.  Well the bad news is that Zemo has hacked my tech, inside job, Pepper’s leading the mole hunt right now.  I can get around it, but it will take a couple of hours.  So everything here is compromised potentially, and until I can fix that we can’t very put well any sort of craft in the air.  Zemo could bring it down, and that’s too risky even for me.”

“So what’s the good news?”

“Didn’t say there was good news, Captain Carrot.  The even more bad news is that Zemo’s not just pulling this so he can evacuate his best antiques from the base before you go in.  We’re still unravelling the trail, but fact is Zemo has been working on methods of controlling the internet.”

“And how are you sure of this?”

“Alright, because I was too.  It was an emergency measure only, if more aliens start hurtling out of the sky we need to be able to co-ordinate perfectly, OK, you can give me the ‘once something like that is invented someone is bound to misuse it’ speech later.  The man in the panther suit wasn’t happy about it either, but right now it looks like we have forced Zemo’s hand and he’s putting his principal plan into place.”

“Control the internet, and you can control everything.”  Bucky said it aloud, an observation.  Stark’s connection must be receiving well, despite the breaking screen, because he answers with little sarcasm.

“Yeah, that’s what we’re up against.  It’s not just gonna be taking over YouTube and Twitter.   Zemo will be able to access  GPS, world markets.  There’s a lesson in there against over relying on technology.”

Steve snorts.  “There sure is.  So how long do we have?”

“He’s probably started the programme already.  But even with his tech, this will take time.  He’ll want to activate everything at once, so we’ll have a breather.”

“Can Vision stop him?” Wilson asks.

“We’re working on it.  Unfortunately reaction against Ultron has caused hia to go more down the route of cosmic contemplation than that of controlling Earth technology.  I guess even purple cyborgs have a learning curve.”

There’s a pause.  Then Steve says, “We’re going to need help.”

They need help, but they also need to buy time, stop Zemo acting too fast on his plans.  A delay is needed.  A diversion.  And the only source of diversion available right now is them. 

To him it’s a makeshift group, but Steve knows all of them except Lang and van Dyne well enough, he’ll know how to make them work.

Wilson and Wanda.  Romanoff, Barton, Lang and van Dyne.  Hill and Sharon Carter.  Fury, who was getting on a bit for field work, but the old ones are often the wiliest.

Steve is using plates and mugs to make an improvised map of Zemo’s stronghold now.  It was a technique he’d often used in the war, carrying a map in his head and improvising for others.  They can’t use the computer projections as things are, not when there’s no saying how much of the network Zemo may have hacked.

“Thor would be useful right about now,” Romanoff remarks.  Thor.  Back when he was still the Soldier Bucky had done research on all the Avengers, and even with his brain still pretty scrambled Thor had been pretty damned hard to believe in.  Flying men in metal suits, and men who turn into green ogres, sure.  But Thor?

“He really the god of thunder?” he asks Steve in an aside.

“I think he got mistaken for a god, a long while back,” Steve says.  “He’d be the first to tell you he isn’t.  Pretty good guy, in fact.  He’d like you.”

~~~

As they don’t have an alien who can hurl lightning, it ends up being Bucky crouched on a lip of overhanging rock, waiting.  Secret bases need to feed their secret personnel, after all, and Zemo’s grand plan hasn’t interrupted the delivery trucks.   So far.

This is, after all, what he was made for.  A quick drop onto a cab roof, a punch through the passenger window, quickly followed by his own body through the passenger window, a gaping driver quickly silenced with chloroform (Fury carry stocks apparently, it’s kinder than a choke hold).  Even in the small space it’s very little trouble with his strength to pull the unconscious man out the way, though rather more trouble to keep the truck straight on the road while he does it.

At the next overhang there is a thump on the roof and Wilson, without the wings, slides in through the window after him.  They have to put the unconscious man down in the footwell, on the passenger side.  Fortunately he’s not very big.

There was a time he would simply have tipped the man out onto the road.  The Asset didn’t kill for the sake of killing, but hadn’t been fussy about collateral either. 

He can’t dwell on that now. 

HYDRA bases tend to follow a fairly set pattern.  It’s as though for all the different cells are kept separate they still all have the same design handbook.  This one is built inside a cliff, which is not unusual, and doesn’t prevent it being basically the same plan.  There is a delivery area, there are roller doors, that start to open as the truck approaches, there are guards, obviously bored.  News of Zemo’s grand plan hasn’t filtered down the Command chain.

This is all so routine that they get right inside before somebody says, “Hey!  You’re not…”

Then it’s a race to stope anyone getting to the alarm.  It’s fast and silent work, a glimpse of Wilson taking a guy down in a flying leap as his hand extends, the familiar feel of his hands connecting with bodies.  Stretching so far back through kill and kill for HYDRA, to long ago Brooklyn alleys.  Fighting is so ingrained in him he can even afford that momentary distraction.

The guards are all down.  The respite won’t last long, there are sure to be cameras, although checking them is probably the job of somebody very bored. 

Wilson speaks into the just switched on communicator, at this stage they’re about to be blown anyway so not much point in maintain silence now.  “Go, go!”

Bucky kicks open the door leading from the delivery area, and he and Wilson are inside just as the first of their reinforcements come tearing up. 

Once in France the Commandos had been ordered to capture a chateau that turned out to be a holding place for part of Red Skull’s occult collection.  Creepy stuff, some of it, but SSR wasn’t all that fussed.  The whole attack had been a diversion, but nobody had told the Commandos that until afterwards.  Steve had been furious, but Bucky had seen the point.  Would they have fought as effectively if they’d known they were a diversion?

Time to put that question to the test.  

Finally an alarm goes off.  By this time they are inside, Bucky taking the lead.  Zemo will have his quarters high up somewhere.  His type always like to look down as much as possible and bases this size are built to reflect that. 

A double set of doors slide open.  On the other side are some…. Experiments.  Best to think of them that way.

“What the…” somebody, Lang he thinks, says into the earpiece. 

“Looks like Zemo has been experimenting with Chitauri DNA,” he hears Widow say.  Typical HYDRA.  He hopes these poor bastards were volunteers. 

After that it’s brutal.  Through the earpiece he can hear Steve directing the team.  Fury is outside, securing the area with the help of the local law enforcement that had been intended to be back up.    Once Steve’s squad catch up with him and Wilson, Bucky helps the team punch through into a large open area with clear sky above, an open shaft the height of the cliff.  Here there are more enemies, though not as many as the space could hold, and they are able to fight their way through to another area where a staircase leads up two levels, then stops.  Their team hasn’t taken serious hits yet, but it’s slow, it’s taking too long, and there’s something about the way the enemy keeps falling back before them that has all his alarm bells ringing. 

He grabs Steve, remembering to switch of his communicator, pulls him aside letting the others carry the fight for a moment.  “We’re just doing what they want.  Taking the obvious route, punching our way up layer after layer.”

“Yeah.  They’re got enough to spin this out for hours.”  Steve is breathless despite the serum.  “You think you can get to Zemo if we keep things busy down here?”

He can’t make promises.  He doesn’t know what traps are up there.  But the Winter Soldier was made for hunting.  “Worth a shot.”

“Take anyone you want.”

He takes Lang, because the guy is great is you need unobtrusive, and he heads for the top via an elevator shaft.  The metal arm makes short work of the doors; from there he can use the cables to climb.  It’s fast, no great effort, even though the left shoulder doesn’t move quite as easily as the right.  The word must have gone round however, because the lift suddenly starts speeding up the shaft, and he has to wrench another set of doors open, to another room of soldiers.

These are regular humans, but familiar.  These are one of the teams he worked with. 

One of them shouts a trigger phrase.  Stupid.  That one wore off three missions ago. 

They’d always been afraid of him.  The attack dog that might turn on his masters at any time.  He had always, just a little, enjoyed that.  The reputation of a wild beast, the nearest thing to respect he was allowed.

Armed and ready as he is, he and Lang can take them.  He knows all about them, in the ways that matter for a fight.  They no longer know all about him, and they know still less about his ally.

“Is superheroing always like this?”  Lang asks when HYDRA are groaning on the floor.  He’s pushed his helmet back, and is looking a little nauseated, the ways kids new to battle sometimes did, so long ago. 

“I wouldn’t know.”

“But you’re…” Lang starts.

“I’m a soldier.”  That at least he is sure of.  “And soldiering is like this, except when it’s worse.”  They are higher up now, far above ground level.  He punches through a window giving onto the central shaft, scoops up the rapidly shrunken down Lang to ride on his shoulder, and begins scaling the outside wall, punching himself handholds as he goes.  He’s about four floors below the top when when something high powered smacks into the wall uncomfortably close.  Whatever it was, there’s no point in risking another one, so he swings through the nearest window feet first.

They clear that room as well, but not without cost, as one of the HYDRA soldiers with Chitauri implants manages to get a grip on Lang, and twist his arm to an unnatural degree before Bucky can take out the attacker.  Lang screams, a short choked cry of the kind that can’t be kept in, and when the last of HYDRA’s goons go down he sinks back against the wall with his left arm at an unnatural angle.

“Don’t!” he gasps painfully as Bucky reaches for him.

“Someone’s gonna have to take a look.”

“Not yet, if you take any of the suit off I probably won’t get it back on.”

“OK, but you shouldn’t be fighting.  Shrink down, stay out of things.  We’re nearly at the top, I can finish this alone.”

As he turns to leave he realises a pocket has ripped, and the pack of cards he had tucked in there before going to fight is tumbling across the  floor, the bright rectangles spilling out of the torn cardboard.   There’s no time to pick them up. 

He takes the stairs the rest of the way.  Kicks open the door at the top, throws himself across the floor in a roll and … nothing.  No goons, no Zemo.

Too easy.  He could be wrong about Zemo being up here.  Perhaps.  Or it could be a trap. 

There’s a door on the other side.  He repeats the same procedure as before.  As soon as he is through there is a sound behind, and when he twists to look round he finds a solid transparent barrier in place.  He punches it with the full force of his left arm, and is unsurprised when it holds firm.

The other side of the room is another barrier, behind it a man before a bank of machines.  Typical.

“What do you want?” he says.  He’s certain of it now, he has never seen Zemo before.  He doesn’t look like a monster.  So many of them didn’t.

“Just a few minutes of your time,” Zemo says easily.  “When I’ve had those, you can go.”

The man must really think his brain is mush.

“You are wondering why I would?” Zemo says.  “I have no need for you to die.  I will even be generous, and give you a chance to run.”

“Why?”

“I sincerely regret that Captain Rogers has to die.  He is one of humanity’s finest leaders, but he simply will not see the necessity for unity.  And he is a symbol.  Even now there are those who believe he must be right.  So it is necessary to prove him wrong.”

“He was right about you,” Bucky says, his eyes flickering, taking in the room.  There is another of those barriers in front of the window.  Of course. 

One cage to another.  But he doesn’t matter.

“He was wrong.  Yes, I am part of HYDRA.  But I am not Schmidt, who craved only power for its own sake.  But Rogers and the world at large would see that as a quibble.  So I will show them something else.”

A flick of his hand on a control device, and a screen behind him blinks on.  On it…

“That’s not me,” Bucky says, but there is a blank of horror in his mind, because what he is seeing is The Asset.  Mask and goggles in place, metal arm gleaming.  It’s like seeing through a time warp, or seeing a part of himself hived off, and if he could just strip off that part, if he could…

“That can’t be me.”

“That disguise mesh SHIELD invented is remarkably useful.  And Rumlow is a good enough shot.  His obsession with revenge makes him more than useful here.”

“That’s Rumlow.”  His breathing is under control now.

“Not in the eyes of the world.”

“Steve,” he says urgently into the com,” Steve, Rumlow’s going to snipe you.”  It’s dead.

“That won’t work behind these walls,” says Zemo.  “This will be the proof Captain America was fatally deluded.  The proof he was lured into a misguided war, then assassinated, by a man he trusted.  It will all be on camera: Captain America murdered by the Winter Soldier.”  His tone is matter of fact, not gloating.  “By the man he thought of as an old friend.  He will be widely pitied, but his judgement discredited.”

On the screen The Asset is readying his sniper rifle.

“NO!” he screams, the him in the glass cage screams.  “NO!  STEVE!”  He slams his arm into the wall.  It doesn’t give.   He calls up the electric charge he’d used on War Machine, lets it run through his body, it’s agony but he pounds the wall again and again as he screams.  It doesn’t give.


	26. Married with a lack of vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos!

He stops at last, the knowledge there is nothing now to gain settling in.

“Bastard.”  He doesn’t even say it with venom.  The aftershocks are working through his body. 

“I told you,” Zemo says, “You’ll get a chance to run.  You get taken in, I doubt you’ll see a trial.”

“If I run, it’s as good as admitting I did it.”  Rumlow has taken up position on the screen.  There is no sign of Steve as yet, but he can see below Rumlow a raised flat area, full of a mix of regular troops and the modified soldiers.  No doubt Zemo has been monitoring Steve.    No doubt Steve and the others will break out onto that platform soon.  “That’s why you are telling me.  You want me to bolt.”

“It would be simpler.  But don’t delude yourself you can block my plans by martyring yourself.”

“No,” he says, eyes on the screen.  “I don’t think that.  But maybe you should look at your own pictures.”

Steve bursts onto the screen, a whirlwind of movement, too fast for anyone, even The Asset, to get a good shot in.  Seconds later heavy boots kick Rumlow in the head, Wilson’s wings blocking the whole screen briefly, before he’s on top of Rumlow, tearing the mesh away to show the real man underneath with his scarred face and two flesh arms.

Bucky grins.  “Thanks, Wanda.”  Then to Zemo, “You didn’t allow for a telepath on the team.”  He’d known the pain of electrifying himself would get her attention, he’d just had to make the message loud and clear.  Moments later the barrier between him and the window dissolves in a flash of red sparks. 

Bucky throws himself straight through it, using the grappling line built into his arm to swing himself round and through the next window into the room where Zemo was.  Of course he isn’t there now, but there’s only one other exit so he goes for it.  The comm in his ear flaring to life in the middle of a speech by Stark.

“… ETA approximately three minutes and thirty-eight seconds, and I hope you spared me some leftovers.”

“Don’t worry, Tony, there’s plenty to go round,” Steve says, sounding cheerful.

Bucky breaks in, “Zemo’s on the move, he knows the Crossbones plan was a bust.”

“Taking him’s not top priority,” Steve says.  “How’s the blocking plan going, Tony?”

“Hill’s co-ordinating.  Countdown beginning shortly.”

Bucky takes a look round Zemo’s tower suite.  The banks of computer screens aren’t all interpretable to him, so he decides to leave them to Stark.  Better get after Zemo.  He’s just the type to have a back up.   

He finds the second staircase without trouble, as he starts down he hears Stark’s voice in the comm again.  “OK, Cap, I’ve got the internal security hacked now.”  With a map of the compound in his head it isn’t hard to follow directions, even ones not meant for him.

~~~

Steve half follows the updates through his comm as he runs.  FRIDAY is logging Zemo’s movements, his own security turned against him.  This is simple.  This is what Captain America was made for, never for political wrangles.  The question now is what kind of an enemy Zemo is, whether he is in full retreat or is looking for a new place to make a stand. 

He finds the answer turning a corner into another open space, gleaming with plate metal.  His breath makes cold clouds in the air. 

Zemo stands on the other side, holding something that looks like a thin beam of white light.  Steve has seen enough strangeness in his life to pause.  

“You might as well quit,” he says.  “You’ve lost, Zemo.  Your programme is being defeated right now.  We’ve got half the hacker groups around the world working on it.  Networks are contacting other networks.”

“Steve made a really good speech,” Bucky says, appearing from another doorway.  Steve for a moment almost grins, because he sounds so conversational.  “Would have had me rushing to join his army of hackers in a moment.”

“I just told them what was at stake here.”

“What is at stake,” Zemo snaps, and he is rattled now, “is the world.  We are facing a threat your small mind refuses to grasp.  Unity is the only way.  A world divided into petty national conflicts and pursuit of self-interest cannot stand against the creatures that will be unleashed.  You think your Asgardian princeling who likes to play tourist will save us?  You think your muddled improvisations will work a second time?  We need strength.”

“There’s no true strength in tyranny,” Steve says, “and nothing noble in seizing power for yourself.  Now will you come quietly or are you going to be a sore loser?”

“Do you think you can contain me?  You think your accusations will hold for long, that I do not have the strength to prove your accusations ravings, your footage fake, your actions here an attack on a harmless and legal installation?”

“If you are so confident you can walk away,” Steve says, “Then why don’t you surrender now?”

“Because you are unfortunately persistent, and you make too much trouble.” 

“Oh, cut the cackle,” Bucky says impatiently from behind Zemo, his right arm raised to keep their enemy covered.  “Drop your weapon.  I’d like a reason to kill you.”

“I am sure you would,” says Zemo and then there is a slight movement with the hand not holding the swordlike beam, the hand that holds a sort of device, and there is a muted explosion from the gun in Bucky’s hand, combined with one from the weapon at his side.  The gun hadn’t torn apart, but as Bucky pulls the trigger Steve is already expecting it won’t fire.

“Stark concentrates on metal plating for protection,” Zemo says.  “But it is so much more effective to disarm your opponents.”

With that Zemo attacks. 

Steve immediately raises his shield only to feel agony run through him.  The pain sends him to his knees, all but whiting out, then the pale line of Zemo’s blade cuts towards him again, he rolls aside not quite in time as this time it hits his right shoulder.  The pain is less intense than when the beam hit the shield, and Steve realises metal is acting as a conductor. 

Through the pain he sees Bucky has already lunged for Zemo, who sidesteps not quite quickly enough to avoid being knocked off balance but he recovers quickly, another blade springs from his left hand, and catches Bucky across the flesh shoulder, dragging a choked cry from him.   Steve drives himself to his feet, reflexes already slowed by pain, discards the useless shield, and throws himself back into the fight. 

There is little scope for skill.  It’s a battle to stay out of the reach of the blades and simultaneously to get close enough to strike a blow.  A battle to keep moving despite the scything pain, every time the blades connect, however briefly, however glancingly.  Zemo is no supersoldier but he is very fast and the constant whirling of the blades makes it hard to even get close, even working as a team.  He can see Bucky twisting as he fights, trying to keep the metal arm away from Zemo, but the blade connects and rips out a scream of agony, knocking him reeling, but he keeps his feet, fights on.

Steve had fought through pain so often.  It had been so familiar a companion for so long, the days and weeks and months without pain that this new body had brought had been something he had given thanks for daily, for a long time, but then like all miracles it had become familiar, taken for granted.

Steve had fought on so often, beaten bloody in alleyways, driving himself to his feet again and again, because if he stopped fighting when he had still the strength to lift a hand, if he stopped even once, he might never fight again.

It’s all a blur of pain now, dull agony boring through him.  Bucky can’t be any better, but he fights on, just and grimly, just as stubbornly.  Steve can no longer think of anything outside this room, anything but the man who he barely knows as Zemo now, the man who is the latest head of a monster that sees human life as nothing, human pain as nothing.  Anything but Zemo and the man fighting beside him, with him, the two of the matching each other with every blow that is given and taken.  It’s been so long since the fights in back alleys. Their bodies are different, their fighting is different, they shouldn’t be able to fall into a rhythm like this and yet they do.  It’s not smooth or comfortable, it never was, it’s brutal and bought with pain. 

Steve is bone weary.  The weeks on the run, the need to act quickly against Zemo, the fight. Before that he’d been tired.  Was there ever a time in his life he wasn’t? 

You can’t ever give up.  He puts it all into one last lunge, using a move Natasha taught him, making the momentum of his own body carry him through the pain, Zemo sees the lunge and sidesteps, but Steve, already prepared, swings his legs around, catching Zemo on the heel.  It’s enough for a stumble, enough time for Steve to roll to his knees, reach up to catch the left arm and throw Zemo over his shoulder, crying out with the pain as one of the blades lashes him, but maintaining his grip as Bucky follows his move and brings his arm, his metal arm, crashing down on Zemo’s right wrist.  Even then Zemo manages to catch Bucky across his right forearm with the blade in Zemo’s left hand, but although Steve hears Bucky’s strangled sound of pain it doesn’t stop Bucky catching Zemo above the elbow, still with the metal arm, propelling Zemo forward, off balance.  Steve uses his grip on the left arm to pull Zemo down, twisting brutally at the wrist, until Zemo cries out and let’s go off his second weapon.  Bucky is already pushing him face down on the floor, throwing away the blade fallen from the right hand.  Steve does the same with one fallen from the left, then with hands shaking from pain, he takes off his belt and uses it to tie Zemo’s arms to his side.  Zemo is silent now, clearly in pain himself.  Steve has no pity.

“You know,” Bucky says, his hair is hanging into his eyes and there is an angry weal down the left side of his face where one of the blades must have caught him, “a guy this rich, he’ll probably still talk his way out.  Buy people off.”

“Yes,” Steve says wearily.  He looks down at the man under his hands.  Zemo looks oddly small now.  Steve could break his neck.  He knows exactly how. 

“We’d better call this in,” he says.


	27. The moment to live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! It feels like a long journey, but I've finally got there. 
> 
> Once again, many thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos. It's always great to know other people are enjoying my writing.

They hand Zemo over to Rhodes.  He’s already reeling off the number of his lawyer.  Then Bucky goes to check on Lang, and Steve has to organise the follow through with Tony, T’Challa and Fury.  The Wakandans seem a little peeved to have missed most of the fight, but T’Challa undertakes to use his diplomatic leverage to see Zemo tried.  Steve doesn’t doubt that leverage will have been increased by the promise of vibranium stocks. What he wants to know above all, though, is that his team will be safe, now they’ve proved one of the driving forces behind the Accords was HYDRA all along.

“You really think it’s going to be that easy?” says Fury.  “Why do you think I played dead after Project Insight?”

“I thought it was because you like cloak and dagger,” Steve says tartly.  But he’s not really surprised, just bitterly resigned.  The government will still want scapegoats.  He can’t let it be any of those who’ve followed him this far.  That is simply unacceptable.

It’s late when he comes out and finds Bucky with Sam and Natasha supervising HYDRA prisoners Bucky is speaking to one of the uniformed squad Sharon called in, sounding so much like Sergeant Barnes of the Howling Commandos Steve half-expects to turn round and see Dum-Dum. 

One of the cuffed prisoners is Rumlow, with the signs of Sam’s beatdown pretty clear on his face.  Steve doesn’t trust himself to go near the man.  He knows now, Rumlow had stood in the room when Bucky was tortured.  He wasn’t the torturer, but he’d been there and cared nothing.

“If I were you,” he says, when he and Bucky have a moment alone.  “I don’t think I could have kept from killing Rumlow.”

“Yeah, you would,” Bucky says.  “He’s not worth it.  If I went after all the Rumlows it would take the rest of my life.  And they’d still have won, in the end, because that life would have been one long murder.”

_You’re amazing_ , Steve thinks, but he doesn’t say it, because Nat has a report on the internet situation for him.

~~~

It’s not as easy as he tried to make it sound.  The Soldier had been built for killing, and even though he’d limited his kills since he broke free to the major players – that perhaps was Brooklyn boy’s thrift as much as anything – when he saw Rumlow shackled and bloody… he’d thought of it.  pictured it even, how the snapping of the bone would sound.  Like he’d thought of it with Zemo; the man had done nothing to him personally, but he was another that saw people as useful tools. 

But it was so very wrong that he knew exactly how snapping bone sounded.  If he was to get back anything at all, he had to choose to stop. 

He wonders now if they’d been right not to kill Zemo.  Rumlow doesn’t matter, just another thug.  But Zemo is quite another deal.  Had he been selfish, putting his own wish to unlearn being a murderer first?  Too late now.

He sees Lang made comfortable, with a promise that Stark will foot the medical bills from Rhodes.  Speaks to Wanda.   Then, trivially, he goes back to the floor where his playing cards had spilled out.  Some are ripped, others trampled by boots, probably when Lang was being taken downstairs for treatment.  Some have undoubtedly been lost.  He can get a new pack, he knows, but this one has travelled a long way with him.

He gathers some of the cards, and is ridiculously pleased to see his glowing Turner among them, as well as the card with the storm-tossed boat that had seemed to be Wanda’s choice.   Among the others he singles out a picture of three small, jewel-like, hummingbirds and one with a footbridge over lilies.  He tucks them in an untorn pocket and goes back downstairs.

~~~

Steve looks as exhausted as Bucky feels by the time they get a room.  It’s only when Steve strips the uniform off that Bucky sees the mark, the burns from Zemo’s blades all over his body. 

“Hell, Steve,” he said helplessly, angrily. 

Steve blinks, seeming to take a minute to work out what he is talking about. 

“You’re no better.” Well, no, and the burns have been pulling painfully at his skin ever since the fight.  But he expects that.  Steve wasn’t made to be a weapon.

Except he was, wasn’t he?  What else had Project Rebirth been. 

He’d been so angry when he’d learned Erskine hadn’t even told Steve that the last person to get the serum had had his face burned off by it. 

They share a bed again that night, but there’s no sex.  They’re both so tired.  Tonight it’s enough to be close.  Enough to be together, and it’s so strange he can do this, that after everything he is comfortable with skin pressed against skin, arms around bodies.  But he’s not going to argue with it.

Steve is familiar.  Steve is home.

It’s not until the next morning that Steve confesses.

Strangely Bucky is barely angry.  It’s so typically Steve.

“They need a scapegoat,” Steve says, in that tone he uses when he wants to sound completely reasonable and is actually coming up with some sort of idiotic drama.  “I’m not letting them have you or Wanda or Sam.”

“Steve, I swear if you are about to pull some idiotic ‘It’s all my fault’ ploy I’ll strangle you.  You hand yourself over, who knows what they’ll do.  You agreed Wanda shouldn’t turn herself in.  How is it different for you?”

“Because I’m Captain America,” Steve says with irritating smugness.  “No, listen, Buck.  They’re not going to disappear me.  They can’t, there’s too many news outlets who’ll scream if they’re not transparent.  You, Wanda, Sam, they’d screw over any of you.  They can’t do that to Captain America.  Not without more backlash than would be worthwhile.  They have me, they won’t bother about the rest of you so much.  And they won’t be able to keep me quiet forever either.  This is the best way I can carry on the fight.  Weren’t you the one who first told me that not all battles are won by punching things?”

“I hate it when I’m right.”  His throat is dry and choked.  “And I hate it when you’re right even more.”

“Do something for me?” Steve picks up his shield from where it was propped against a wall.  “Take care of this.”

Another memory.  He’d started to get used to them not cutting when they fell into his mind, but this one is razor-edged.  The clang of metal against meta, the disc caught in the metal arm….  He takes a step back.

“Wilson…”

“Sam would look after it well.  But I’m asking you, because I want you to have it.  Take it to remember who you are.”

And who is that?  He’s been so many selves, and if there is anything sure it’s that the person he is now isn’t any of those who’ve been before.

Steve holds his eyes.  “Never a perfect soldier, but always a good man.”

~~~

They walk out together.  This isn’t an arrest, not yet, it’s merely an agreement that Steve goes back with Stark and Rhodes.

Bucky doesn’t bring the shield.  He’ll go back for it later, he’s barely holding it together without dealing with how Stark would react to the Winter Soldier carrying Captain America’s shield.  However hard he tries to put a good face on, there’s panic budding under his breastbone, because what if Steve is wrong?  What if Steve is walking to death or worse?

The others aren’t thrilled with the plan either.  It’s Wanda who argues longest, but in the end Steve wears her down.  “Look after Wanda,” was one of the last things Steve had said to Bucky, now he is sure that as Steve hugs Wanda he is telling her to look after him.  Wilson is doubtless told to take care of them both.

Hill had already got the fake IDs for the outlaws.  Bucky doesn’t bother to look at his, before shoving it in a pocket.  “I insisted Tony not handle it,” Steve had said.  “I hate to think what names he’d have come up with.”

“Did you alert the press?” Steve asks Romanoff finally. 

“They’ll be a grand reception waiting for you,” she promises, drily. 

“Reception?” Stark asks.  “Oh, I get it.  I’m going to be the Big Bad Wolf who brings  Captain Clean home in handcuffs, aren’t I?”

“Public loves an underdog,” Romanoff shrugs.  And Steve will do noble resignation perfectly.  When Steve isn’t being massively stupid, he’s clever as a box of monkeys.

Bucky has the card he picked out for Steve, the footbridge over lilies, in his hand.  He’d been meaning just to hand it to him, a token, a promise, but without even thinking he steps forward and spins Steve round into a massive hug, even as he presses the card into his hand.  “I love you, you know.” 

“I do,” and there’s a crack in Steve’s voice.  “Sorry, Buck.”  Before Bucky can even get breath to ask what Steve thinks he needs to be sorry for Steve has pulled away.  He turns back though, halfway to the door, and throws Bucky a salute.

Steve’s salutes were always sloppy as hell.  Easy to tell the punk had never gone through basic properly.

~~~

When Bucky comes out again, with his own small bag and the larger canvas one that holds the shield, he finds Wilson and Wanda waiting.  He still has the two cards for them in a pocket, but there will be time later.

“Is there a plan?” he addresses Wilson.  Somehow he doesn’t think this guy is going to just retire, apparently he’d tried that once and couldn’t stick to it. 

Of course Wilson could still tell him to get lost.  But he doesn’t.  Instead he says, “Well, calling it a plan is a bit steep, but I should really look in on my folks.  Got any ideas for how to do that without getting arrested, Cap?”

It’s entirely deliberate, no slip of the tongue.  “I’m just looking after the shield for Steve.”

“It’s completely your choice, man,” Wilson says.  “But he wouldn’t have given you that shield if he didn’t trust you with it.”

It’s like one of those puzzle pictures.  One of those pictures that could be either a candlestick or a pair of faces.  From one angle Steve has just given him a possession to take care of but from another…

Captain America and Steve Rogers had never been the same.  Sure there was overlap, there were blurred lines.  But Captain America had started out as an act.

Not this kind of act though.  “An outlaw Captain America?  That’s not what the name means.”

“Captain America’s been an outlaw since we walked out of the Avengers Headquarters,” Wilson says.  “Question is, I guess, how good is the cause?  Because isn’t Captain America the guy who fights for what’s right?”

“You’ve been listening to Steve’s old USO songs.” 

Wanda speaks up unexpectedly.  “I used to hate Captain America.  Then I got to know Steve Rogers.  I think some of the ways that symbol has been used, that wasn’t something he liked or wanted.  To take it away from the people with the power, that may be a good thing.”

Bucky squints suspiciously.  “Are you two ganging up on me?”

“Not yet,” Wilson says cheerfully.  “And you haven’t answered the question about my family.”

Wilson is handing him an occupation, something to distract.  Although it’s probably true Wilson wants to see his family as well. 

He has a sudden intense rush of gratitude.  Steve may be off playing noble idiot, again, but Bucky isn’t alone here, and they’ll all have Steve’s back when it’s needed.  A good team.

“We’ll work on it,” he says.

 

~~~~~

_Cause you don’t have to die in your glory  
Die to never grow old_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have plans for a sequel at present, although I certainly picture everyone uniting against Thanos at some point!
> 
> The paintings in this final chapter:  
> Martin Johnson Head, 'Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds', https://www.nga.gov/Collection/art-object-page.61244.html  
> Monet, 'The Japanese Footbridge', https://www.nga.gov/Collection/highlights/highlight74796.html

**Author's Note:**

> I can't give a schedule for updates, but I wanted to start to get this out, before 'Civil War' came out in cinemas.
> 
> The story is complete in rough draft, but the later sections need a lot of work


End file.
